A self-styled visionary who drew hundreds of devotees to a community near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected fraud.
Central Accusations and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was sending communications to her, will be tried together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of staging false visions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of catastrophes to attract donations from their Catholic followers.
Cardia drew hundreds of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scheme collected €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making untrue predictions, including claiming the statue warned her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a campaign on frauds 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,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Background and Related Incidents
The accused, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office announced that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo approved a ruling last week directing Catholics not to call 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 counter the proliferation of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of visions, weeping figures, and so-called seers.
The former pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
