A self-styled visionary who drew hundreds of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for suspected deception.
Central Charges and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are charged with orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of disasters to attract donations from their religious followers.
Cardia drew many of individuals each month to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scam generated €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their funds would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making false prophecies, including stating the statue warned her that the evil was concocting calamities, 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 inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the substance on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on supernatural phenomena as part of a crackdown on frauds 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
Cardia, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo 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 extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged assertions of visions, crying statues, and self-styled prophets.
The late pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
