A so-called mystic who attracted hundreds of devotees to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for suspected deception.
Key Accusations and Particulars
The accused woman, who also claimed the statue was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false predictions of disasters to solicit contributions from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia drew hundreds of people each month to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over a number of years, the alleged scam generated €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also accused of making false prophecies, including claiming the statue alerted her that the evil was planning calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the blood on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its regulations on paranormal phenomena as part of a crackdown on scams and deceptions.
“Despite the irony, she finds comfort, viewing this as a chance to clarify the facts openly and conclusively stop all rumors, confusion, and disputes,” said her legal representative, the attorney.
Background and Connected Incidents
The accused, who has a previous sentence for financial crime, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have shown himself to a woman 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The authority announced that the claimed apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff authorized a ruling last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His intervention was aimed to counter the spread of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, weeping statues, and so-called seers.
The late pope cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
