A so-called visionary who drew hundreds of devotees to a town near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud.
Key Charges and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the figure was sending communications to her, will be prosecuted along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are accused of orchestrating fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of catastrophes to solicit donations from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia brought hundreds of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift shrine on a hill. Over a number of years, the alleged scheme generated a large sum in donations from the visitors, who believed their money would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of making false prophecies, including claiming the figure alerted 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.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a detective asserted the blood on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its regulations on supernatural occurrences 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
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, bought the figure in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the alleged apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo authorized a ruling last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from sin. His action was aimed to combat the spread of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of visions, crying figures, and so-called prophets.
The former pope cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.