A so-called mystic who attracted many of pilgrims to a town near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for alleged deception.
Central Accusations and Details
The accused woman, who also stated the figure was sending communications to her, will be tried along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of staging fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue predictions of catastrophes to attract contributions from their Catholic followers.
Cardia brought hundreds of individuals monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a temporary sanctuary on a hill. Over a number of years, the supposed scheme generated a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also accused of issuing false predictions, including stating the statue alerted her that the evil was concocting disasters, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on supernatural occurrences 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,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Context and Related Incidents
Cardia, who has a prior sentence for financial crime, bought 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 apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office announced that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo approved a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His intervention was aimed to counter the proliferation of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of apparitions, weeping figures, and so-called seers.
The late Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
