A so-called visionary who attracted many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected deception.
Key Charges and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the statue was sending messages to her, will be tried along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are charged with staging fake visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue predictions of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia drew many of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been placed in a makeshift shrine on a hill. Over a number of years, the supposed scam collected a large sum in donations from the visitors, who believed their funds would go towards establishing a facility for ill children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with issuing false predictions, including stating the figure alerted her that the devil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on paranormal phenomena as part of a campaign on scams 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,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Connected Events
Cardia, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the alleged apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff authorized a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His action was intended to counter the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of apparitions, weeping figures, and self-styled seers.
The late pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
