A so-called visionary who drew many of pilgrims to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been sent to trial for alleged fraud.
Central Accusations and Particulars
The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was sending communications to her, will be tried together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are accused of staging fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false forecasts of catastrophes to attract donations from their Catholic followers.
Cardia brought many of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the alleged scam collected a large sum in donations from the visitors, who believed their money would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also charged with issuing untrue predictions, including claiming the figure warned her that the devil was concocting disasters, for example an earthquake that would destroy 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 claimed the substance on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its regulations on supernatural occurrences 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 Connected Events
Cardia, who has a previous conviction for financial crime, purchased the figure in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have shown himself to a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo authorized a decree last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His intervention was aimed to counter the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, weeping figures, and self-styled seers.
The late pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
