A so-called visionary who drew many 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 alleged deception.
Central Accusations and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be tried along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are accused of orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue forecasts of disasters to solicit contributions from their religious followers.
Cardia brought hundreds of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scheme collected €365,000 in donations from the visitors, who believed their funds would go towards establishing a facility for ill children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also accused of issuing false prophecies, including claiming the statue warned her that the devil was concocting calamities, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a detective asserted the blood on the statue came from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on paranormal occurrences as part of a campaign 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 Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Background and Connected Incidents
The accused, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the figure in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that supposed visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the purification 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 ruling last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His intervention was aimed to combat the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of apparitions, weeping statues, and self-styled seers.
The former Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
