A so-called visionary who attracted many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected deception.
Central Charges and Particulars
The accused woman, who also stated the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be tried along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are charged with orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false forecasts of disasters to solicit contributions from their religious followers.
Cardia brought hundreds of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scam generated €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards establishing a centre for sick children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also accused of making false predictions, including stating the figure warned her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective asserted the substance on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on supernatural occurrences as part of a campaign on frauds 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 Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Background and Related Events
Cardia, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, 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 stated that supposed visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to a woman 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be built in the town. The office said that the claimed visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff approved a decree last week directing 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 action was intended to combat the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened claims of visions, weeping statues, and self-styled seers.
The former Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
