A so-called visionary who attracted hundreds of devotees to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected fraud.
Central Accusations and Details
The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was sending communications to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are accused of orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false forecasts of disasters to attract contributions from their religious followers.
Cardia brought many of individuals each month to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scheme generated a large sum in donations from the visitors, who believed their funds would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also charged with making false prophecies, including claiming the figure warned her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an tremor that would devastate 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 substance on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a crackdown 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,” said her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Related Events
The accused, who has a previous conviction for financial crime, bought the figure in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that supposed visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to a woman 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo approved a decree last week instructing 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 proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged claims of visions, crying figures, and self-styled prophets.
The former pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
