Self-proclaimed Visionary Confronts Fraud Court Case Regarding Claims Madonna Figure Wept Bloody Tears
A so-called visionary who attracted many of pilgrims to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for suspected fraud.
Central Accusations and Particulars
The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was sending communications to her, will be tried along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are accused of orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of catastrophes to attract donations from their religious supporters.
Cardia drew hundreds of individuals monthly to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scam collected €365,000 in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making untrue predictions, including stating the figure warned her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the statue came from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its regulations on paranormal occurrences as part of a campaign 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,” said her legal representative, the attorney.
Background and Related Incidents
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, purchased the figure in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the European 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 built in the town. The office said that the claimed visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo approved a decree last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus redeem 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 claims of apparitions, crying figures, and self-styled prophets.
The former Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
