A so-called mystic who attracted many of devotees to a community near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected deception.
Key Accusations and Particulars
The accused woman, who also stated the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be tried along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are charged with staging fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia drew many of people monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the alleged scheme generated €365,000 in offerings from the visitors, who believed their funds would go towards establishing a centre for ill children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making false prophecies, including stating the figure alerted her that the devil was planning calamities, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the statue came from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on supernatural 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,” stated her legal representative, the attorney.
Context and Related Events
Cardia, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place 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 ensure the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The authority announced that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo approved a decree last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from sin. His action was aimed to combat the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of apparitions, crying figures, and so-called prophets.
The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
