A self-styled visionary who drew many of devotees to a town near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected deception.
The accused woman, who also claimed the statue was sending communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue forecasts of disasters to attract donations from their religious followers.
Cardia drew hundreds of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside 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 alleged scam collected €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Cardia is also charged with issuing untrue prophecies, including stating the figure warned her that the devil was concocting calamities, 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 initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the figure came from a pig. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its rules on paranormal occurrences 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.
Cardia, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The office announced that the claimed apparitions 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 save the world from sin. His action was intended to counter the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened assertions of visions, weeping statues, and so-called seers.
The former Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
Maya Chen is a freelance writer and urban enthusiast with a passion for documenting city life and cultural shifts.
