A self-styled visionary who attracted many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.
Central Accusations and Particulars
The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was sending messages to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are charged with orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their religious followers.
Cardia brought many of people monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over several years, the alleged scam generated €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also charged with making untrue prophecies, including stating the figure alerted her that the evil was concocting disasters, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a detective asserted the substance on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on supernatural 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 Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Related Incidents
The accused, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought the figure in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be built in the town. The authority announced that the alleged visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff authorized a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His action was intended to counter the spread of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of visions, crying figures, and self-styled seers.
The late pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
