A self-styled visionary who attracted many of pilgrims to a town near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud.
Key Accusations and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the figure was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their Catholic followers.
Cardia brought many of individuals each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over a number of years, the alleged scam generated €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards establishing a centre for ill children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also accused of issuing false prophecies, including stating the statue warned her that the devil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a crackdown on scams and deceptions.
“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,” stated her legal representative, the attorney.
Background and Related Events
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, purchased the figure in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have shown himself to a woman 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the alleged apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo approved a decree last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His action was intended to counter the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged assertions of visions, weeping figures, and so-called prophets.
The former Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
