A so-called visionary who drew hundreds of pilgrims to a community near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud.
Key Charges and Particulars
The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was sending communications to her, will be prosecuted along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are charged with orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of disasters to solicit donations from their religious followers.
Cardia brought hundreds of individuals each month to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the supposed scheme generated a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making false predictions, including claiming the statue alerted her that the devil was planning calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a campaign 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,” said her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Related Incidents
The accused, who has a prior sentence for financial crime, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that supposed visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The office announced that the alleged apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff authorized a decree last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His intervention was intended to combat the spread of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged assertions of visions, weeping figures, and so-called prophets.
The former pope cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
