A self-styled visionary who attracted hundreds 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.
Central Accusations and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the figure was sending messages to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are charged with orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false forecasts of disasters to attract contributions from their religious followers.
Cardia brought hundreds of individuals each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scheme generated €365,000 in donations from the visitors, who believed their money would go towards establishing a centre for ill children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of issuing false prophecies, including claiming the statue warned her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective asserted the substance on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on paranormal occurrences as part of a campaign on frauds 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 Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Background and Connected Incidents
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, bought the figure in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that alleged visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the claimed visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
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 redeem the world from damnation. His intervention was aimed to combat the proliferation of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, crying figures, and so-called prophets.
The late Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
