A self-styled visionary who drew many of devotees to a town near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected fraud.
Central Accusations and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the statue was sending communications to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are accused of orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false forecasts of catastrophes to attract donations from their Catholic followers.
Cardia drew many of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the supposed scam collected a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with issuing false predictions, including stating the figure warned her that the evil was planning calamities, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the statue 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 campaign on scams and hoaxes.
“Despite the irony, she finds comfort, viewing this as a chance to clarify the facts openly and conclusively stop all rumors, confusion, and disputes,” said Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Context and Connected Incidents
Cardia, who has a previous sentence for financial crime, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to a woman 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the alleged visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff authorized a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His action was aimed to counter the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged claims of visions, weeping figures, and self-styled prophets.
The late pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
