A self-styled visionary who drew many of devotees to a community near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud.
Key Accusations and Details
The accused woman, who also stated the figure was sending messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are accused of orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of catastrophes to attract donations from their religious followers.
Cardia drew hundreds of people monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the supposed scheme generated €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also charged with issuing untrue prophecies, including stating the statue warned her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its rules on paranormal phenomena as part of a crackdown on scams and hoaxes.
“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, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Connected Incidents
Cardia, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought the figure in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 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”.
The pontiff 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 save the world from damnation. His action was intended to counter the spread of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of visions, crying statues, and self-styled seers.
The former Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
