A so-called mystic who attracted hundreds of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud.
Key Accusations and Particulars
The accused woman, who also stated the figure was sending messages to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are charged with orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making false forecasts of catastrophes to attract donations from their Catholic followers.
Cardia brought many of people monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over a number of years, the supposed scheme generated €365,000 in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of making untrue prophecies, including claiming the statue warned her that the evil 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 investigation in 2023 after a detective asserted the blood on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its rules on supernatural occurrences as part of a campaign on scams and hoaxes.
“As paradoxical as it may seem, she actually feels relief, believing this is an opportunity to reveal the truth of the events with transparency and to definitively put an end to all forms of speculation, misunderstanding and controversy,” stated her legal representative, the attorney.
Context and Related Incidents
Cardia, who has a previous conviction for financial crime, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the purification of sin be built in the town. The office said that the alleged visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff authorized a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from sin. His intervention was intended to combat the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of visions, weeping statues, and so-called seers.
The former Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.