A so-called mystic who drew many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.
Key Accusations and Particulars
The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was sending communications to her, will be prosecuted along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of catastrophes to attract contributions from their religious supporters.
Cardia drew hundreds of people monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over a number of years, the alleged scheme collected €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards establishing a facility for ill children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making false prophecies, including claiming the statue warned her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on paranormal occurrences as part of a campaign 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,” stated her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Connected Events
The accused, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to a woman 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be built in the town. The authority announced that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo authorized a decree last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His action was aimed to combat the spread of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of visions, weeping statues, and self-styled seers.
The late pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
