A self-styled visionary who attracted many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for suspected deception.
Key Accusations and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be tried along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are accused of orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of catastrophes to solicit donations from their religious followers.
Cardia brought many of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over several years, the alleged scheme collected €365,000 in offerings from the visitors, who believed their money would go towards establishing a facility for ill children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making untrue prophecies, including claiming the figure alerted her that the evil was planning calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the substance on the statue originated from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its rules on paranormal occurrences as part of a campaign 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, the attorney.
Context and Related Incidents
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the figure in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to a woman 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The authority announced that the claimed apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo approved a decree last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His intervention was aimed to combat the spread of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, crying statues, and self-styled prophets.
The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
