A self-styled visionary who drew hundreds of devotees to a community near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud.
Central Accusations and Details
The accused woman, who also claimed the statue was transmitting communications to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are charged with orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of disasters to solicit contributions from their religious supporters.
Cardia drew many of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the supposed scam generated €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards setting up a centre for ill children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with issuing false predictions, including claiming the statue warned her that the evil was planning calamities, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the blood on the statue originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on supernatural phenomena as part of a crackdown 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,” said Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Related Incidents
The accused, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have appeared to a woman 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be built in the town. The office announced that the alleged apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff approved a ruling last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His action was intended to counter the spread of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of visions, crying statues, and self-styled seers.
The former pope cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
