Self-proclaimed ‘Mystic’ Confronts Deception Court Case Regarding Claims Virgin Mary Figure Shed Bloody Tears
A self-styled visionary who attracted many of devotees to a community near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected fraud.
Central Accusations and Details
The accused woman, who also claimed the statue was sending messages to her, will be tried along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are accused of staging fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false forecasts of catastrophes to attract donations from their religious followers.
Cardia brought many of individuals each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been placed in a makeshift shrine on a elevation. Over a number of years, the alleged scheme generated a large sum in donations from the pilgrims, who believed their funds would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also accused of making false prophecies, including stating the figure alerted her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the substance on the statue originated from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a campaign on scams and hoaxes.
“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, the attorney.
Context and Connected Incidents
Cardia, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.
News 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 said to have appeared to a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the claimed apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo authorized 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 redeem the world from damnation. His action was intended to counter the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened claims of apparitions, crying statues, and so-called seers.
The late pope cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
