A self-styled mystic who drew many of devotees to a community near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for alleged deception.
Central Charges and Particulars
The accused woman, who also claimed the statue was sending communications to her, will be tried together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are charged with orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false forecasts of disasters to solicit donations from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia brought hundreds of individuals each month to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the supposed scheme collected €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their funds would go towards establishing a centre for ill children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also accused of issuing false predictions, including claiming the statue warned her that the evil was concocting disasters, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on paranormal phenomena as part of a crackdown on frauds 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 her legal representative, the attorney.
Context and Related Incidents
Cardia, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that alleged visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have shown himself to a woman 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the purification of sin be built in the town. The office said that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo approved a decree last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from sin. His action was intended to counter the spread of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of apparitions, crying figures, and self-styled prophets.
The former Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
