A so-called visionary who drew hundreds of pilgrims to a town near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud.
Central Charges and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the statue was sending communications to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are charged with orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue predictions of disasters to attract donations from their religious supporters.
Cardia drew many of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the alleged scam generated €365,000 in donations from the visitors, who believed their funds would go towards establishing a centre for sick children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also charged with making untrue prophecies, including claiming the figure warned her that the devil was planning disasters, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the blood on the statue came from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on paranormal occurrences as part of a crackdown on frauds 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 Related Incidents
The accused, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the figure in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that supposed visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to a woman 49 times requesting 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”.
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 save the world from damnation. His action was intended to combat the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened assertions of visions, weeping statues, and self-styled seers.
The former Pope Francis warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
