A so-called mystic who attracted many of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for suspected deception.
Central Accusations and Details
The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be tried together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are accused of staging false visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false predictions of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their Catholic followers.
Cardia drew hundreds of people monthly to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the supposed scheme generated a large sum in donations from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a centre for sick children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making untrue predictions, including stating the statue warned her that the devil was concocting disasters, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the figure came from a animal. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations 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, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Related Events
Cardia, who has a previous sentence for financial crime, purchased the figure in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have shown himself to a woman 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The office said 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 aimed to counter the proliferation of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged claims of visions, crying figures, and self-styled seers.
The former pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
