🔗 Share this article

A so-called visionary who drew many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for alleged deception.

Central Charges and Details

The accused woman, who also stated the statue was sending communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.

They are charged with staging false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of catastrophes to attract contributions from their Catholic supporters.

Cardia brought many of individuals each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the alleged scam collected €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a centre for ill children.

Further Allegations

Cardia is also accused of making false predictions, including stating the statue alerted her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.

Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the substance on the figure 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 frauds and deceptions.

“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.

Background and Related Events

Cardia, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.

Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to a woman 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority announced that the claimed visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.

The pontiff approved 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 damnation. His intervention was aimed to counter the spread of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, weeping statues, and so-called prophets.

The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.