A so-called mystic who attracted many of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for suspected fraud.
Central Accusations and Details
The accused woman, who also stated the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be tried along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are charged with staging false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false predictions of disasters to attract contributions from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia drew many of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over several years, the supposed scam collected €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who believed their funds would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also charged with issuing false prophecies, including stating the statue alerted her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its regulations on paranormal phenomena as part of a campaign 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,” said her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Connected Incidents
Cardia, who has a prior sentence for financial crime, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff approved a decree last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His intervention was intended to counter the spread of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged assertions of apparitions, crying statues, and so-called seers.
The former pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
