A so-called visionary who attracted many of devotees to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected deception.
Key Accusations and Particulars
The accused woman, who also claimed the statue was sending messages to her, will be tried together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are charged with staging false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of catastrophes to attract donations from their religious supporters.
Cardia brought many of people monthly to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over a number of years, the supposed scam collected a large sum in donations from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a centre for ill children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of issuing untrue predictions, including stating the figure alerted her that the devil was concocting 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 opened an investigation in 2023 after a detective asserted the substance on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a crackdown 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,” stated her legal representative, the attorney.
Context and Related Incidents
Cardia, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared 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 Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The office announced that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff approved a decree last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His action was intended to counter the spread of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, crying figures, and so-called seers.
The late pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
