A self-styled visionary who drew hundreds of devotees to a community near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.
Central Accusations and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are charged with orchestrating fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue forecasts of disasters to attract donations from their religious supporters.
Cardia brought hundreds of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a makeshift shrine on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scheme generated a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also accused of issuing untrue predictions, including stating the figure warned her that the devil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate 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 claimed the substance on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its regulations on paranormal occurrences as part of a crackdown 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,” said her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Related Incidents
The accused, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, bought the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that alleged visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to a woman 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo authorized a decree last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, 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 exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged assertions of apparitions, crying figures, and self-styled seers.
The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
