A self-styled mystic who attracted many of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for alleged fraud.
Key Accusations and Particulars
The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are charged with orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of disasters to attract contributions from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia drew many of people each month to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a temporary sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the supposed scam generated a large sum in donations from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards establishing a facility for ill children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also accused of issuing false prophecies, including claiming the figure warned her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective asserted the substance on the statue originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a campaign on scams and deceptions.
“As paradoxical as it may seem, she actually feels relief, believing this is an opportunity to reveal the truth of the events with transparency and to definitively put an end to all forms of speculation, misunderstanding and controversy,” said her legal representative, the attorney.
Context and Related Incidents
Cardia, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that supposed visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The authority announced that the alleged apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo approved a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His action was aimed to combat the proliferation of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of visions, weeping statues, and so-called prophets.
The late Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
