A so-called mystic who attracted many of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been sent to trial for alleged deception.
Central Charges and Details
The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are accused of staging false visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false forecasts of disasters to solicit donations from their religious followers.
Cardia drew hundreds of individuals each month to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scam collected a large sum in donations from the visitors, who believed their money would go towards establishing a centre for sick children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of issuing untrue prophecies, including claiming the figure warned her that the devil was planning calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on paranormal 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, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Connected Incidents
The accused, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that supposed visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to a woman 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority announced that the alleged visions 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 redeem the world from sin. His action was intended to counter the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged assertions of visions, crying statues, and so-called prophets.
The late Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
