A so-called mystic who drew many of pilgrims to a town near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been sent to trial for alleged fraud.
Key Charges and Particulars
The accused woman, who also claimed the statue was sending messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are charged with orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of catastrophes to attract 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 hill. Over a number of years, the supposed scheme collected a large sum in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a facility for ill children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also charged with issuing untrue predictions, including stating the statue warned her that the devil was planning calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the blood on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on paranormal phenomena as part of a campaign on frauds and hoaxes.
“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 Related Events
The accused, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the figure in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to a woman 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office announced that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo approved a decree last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from sin. His intervention was intended to combat the spread of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of visions, weeping figures, and so-called seers.
The late pope cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
