Italian ‘Mystic’ Confronts Fraud Court Case Over Allegations Virgin Mary Statue Shed Blood
A so-called visionary who drew hundreds of devotees to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for alleged deception.
Central Charges and Details
The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be tried along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are charged with orchestrating fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their religious followers.
Cardia drew hundreds of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over several years, the alleged scheme collected a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of making false prophecies, including stating the figure warned her that the devil was concocting calamities, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its rules 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, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Related Incidents
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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 requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The office announced that the claimed visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo 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 damnation. His action was intended to combat the spread of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged assertions of visions, crying statues, and self-styled prophets.
The former pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
