A self-styled visionary who attracted many of pilgrims to a town near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for suspected deception.
Key Charges and Particulars
The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was transmitting messages to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are charged with staging false visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of catastrophes to attract donations from their Catholic followers.
Cardia drew many of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over a number of years, the alleged scheme collected €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a centre for ill children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of making false predictions, including claiming the statue alerted her that the evil was planning calamities, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on paranormal 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.
Background and Related Incidents
Cardia, who has a prior sentence for financial crime, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The authority announced that the claimed apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff authorized a ruling 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 intended to combat the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, weeping figures, and so-called prophets.
The former Pope Francis warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
