A so-called visionary who drew many of devotees to a town near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected fraud.
Central Charges and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the figure was sending communications to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of orchestrating fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false predictions of catastrophes to attract contributions from their religious supporters.
Cardia brought hundreds of individuals each month to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over a number of years, the alleged scheme collected €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a facility for ill children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making untrue prophecies, including claiming the figure warned her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the blood on the figure came from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its rules on paranormal phenomena as part of a campaign on scams and hoaxes.
“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,” said Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Background and Related Incidents
The accused, who has a previous sentence for financial crime, bought the figure in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the alleged apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff authorized a decree last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His action was intended to combat the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, weeping statues, and self-styled prophets.
The late Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
