A self-styled visionary who drew many of devotees to a town near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been sent to trial for alleged fraud.
Central Charges and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the figure was sending communications to her, will be tried together 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 contributions from their Catholic followers.
Cardia brought many of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over a number of years, the supposed scheme generated a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also accused of making false prophecies, including claiming the statue alerted her that the devil was concocting disasters, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on supernatural occurrences as part of a crackdown on frauds 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 Connected Events
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, bought the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have shown himself to a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The office announced that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff authorized a ruling last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His intervention was intended to combat the proliferation of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, weeping statues, and so-called prophets.
The former Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
