Italian Visionary Confronts Deception Trial Over Claims Virgin Mary Figure Shed Bloody Tears
A self-styled mystic who drew many of devotees to a town near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for alleged deception.
Central Accusations and Particulars
The accused woman, who also claimed the statue was sending messages to her, will be tried along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are charged with staging fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making false forecasts of disasters to attract contributions from their religious supporters.
Cardia drew many of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the supposed scam generated a large sum in donations from the visitors, who trusted their funds would go towards establishing a facility for ill children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also accused of issuing untrue prophecies, including claiming the figure alerted her that the evil was concocting calamities, 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 opened an inquiry in 2023 after a detective asserted the substance on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on paranormal occurrences 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 her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Related Events
Cardia, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that supposed visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office announced that the alleged visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff approved a ruling last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from sin. His action was aimed to combat the spread of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of visions, weeping figures, and so-called seers.
The former pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
