A so-called visionary who drew many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.
Central Charges and Details
The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was transmitting messages to her, will be tried together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are charged with staging false visions of the Virgin Mary and making false forecasts of disasters to solicit contributions from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia drew many of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a elevation. Over several years, the alleged scheme collected €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards establishing a centre for sick children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also charged with issuing false predictions, including stating the figure alerted her that the devil was concocting disasters, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a detective asserted the substance on the figure came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on paranormal phenomena 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 Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Context and Related Incidents
Cardia, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the alleged apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo approved a ruling last week directing 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 intervention was intended to counter the proliferation of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of apparitions, crying statues, and so-called prophets.
The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
