A so-called mystic who drew many of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for alleged fraud.
Key Charges and Details
The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was sending communications to her, will be tried together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are charged with orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of disasters to attract contributions from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia brought many of people each month to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a elevation. Over several years, the alleged scheme generated a large sum in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a facility for ill children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also charged with making false predictions, including stating the figure alerted her that the devil was concocting disasters, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the substance on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on supernatural occurrences as part of a crackdown on frauds 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.
Background and Related Incidents
Cardia, who has a previous conviction for financial crime, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority announced that the alleged apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo approved a ruling last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His action was intended to counter the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged claims of visions, weeping figures, and self-styled seers.
The former Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
