A self-styled mystic who attracted many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for alleged deception.
Central Accusations and Details
The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue predictions of catastrophes to solicit donations from their religious supporters.
Cardia brought many of individuals each month to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the alleged scheme collected a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of making false predictions, including claiming the statue warned her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the substance on the figure came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on supernatural occurrences as part of a crackdown on frauds 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 Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Connected Incidents
The accused, who has a previous conviction for financial crime, bought the figure in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that supposed visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The office said that the claimed visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo approved a decree last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His intervention was aimed to combat the spread of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged assertions of visions, weeping figures, and self-styled seers.
The former Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
