A self-styled visionary who drew many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for alleged fraud.
Central Accusations and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the figure was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are accused of orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of disasters to solicit contributions from their Catholic followers.
Cardia drew hundreds of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scam collected €365,000 in offerings from the visitors, who believed their funds would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making untrue predictions, including claiming the figure warned her that the evil was planning calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on paranormal phenomena as part of a crackdown on scams 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,” stated her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Related Events
The accused, who has a prior sentence for financial crime, purchased the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared 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 “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office announced that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo approved a decree last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from sin. His action was aimed to combat the spread of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged assertions of apparitions, weeping figures, and self-styled seers.
The former Pope Francis warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
