A self-styled visionary who drew hundreds of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.
Central Charges and Details
The accused woman, who also stated the statue was sending messages 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 false forecasts of disasters to attract donations from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia brought many of individuals each month to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over several years, the alleged scam generated €365,000 in donations from the visitors, who believed their funds would go towards establishing a centre for ill children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also charged with issuing false prophecies, including stating the statue alerted her that the devil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a detective asserted the substance on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on supernatural occurrences 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 her legal representative, the attorney.
Context and Related Incidents
The accused, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be built in the town. The office announced that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo authorized 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 sin. His intervention was intended to combat the spread of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of apparitions, weeping statues, and self-styled seers.
The former Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
