A so-called mystic who drew many of devotees to a town near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for alleged fraud.
Central Charges and Details
The accused woman, who also stated the figure was sending communications to her, will be tried along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are charged with orchestrating fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of disasters to solicit contributions from their Catholic followers.
Cardia brought 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 supposed scam collected €365,000 in offerings from the visitors, who believed their funds would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of issuing false predictions, including claiming the figure alerted her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the figure came from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on paranormal phenomena as part of a campaign on scams and deceptions.
“Despite the irony, she finds comfort, viewing this as a chance to clarify the facts openly and conclusively stop all rumors, confusion, and disputes,” said Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Context and Related Events
Cardia, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that alleged visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The authority announced that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff approved a decree last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His action was intended to counter the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, weeping statues, and self-styled prophets.
The former pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
