A so-called mystic who drew many of pilgrims 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 statue was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are charged with orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue forecasts of disasters to attract donations from their religious followers.
Cardia brought hundreds of people monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a hill. Over a number of years, the supposed scheme collected €365,000 in donations from the visitors, who trusted their funds would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making false predictions, including stating the statue warned her that the devil was planning calamities, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective asserted the substance on the figure came from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a crackdown on scams and hoaxes.
“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 Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Background and Connected Events
Cardia, who has a prior sentence for financial crime, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that alleged visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to a woman 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” 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 authorized a decree last week directing Catholics not to call 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 combat the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, crying statues, and so-called prophets.
The late pope cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
