A so-called visionary who attracted hundreds of pilgrims to a community near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.
Central Charges and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also stated 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 visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of disasters to attract contributions from their Catholic followers.
Cardia brought many of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over several years, the alleged scam generated €365,000 in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making false prophecies, including stating the statue alerted her that the evil was concocting disasters, 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 investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the figure came from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a crackdown on frauds and deceptions.
“Despite the irony, she finds comfort, viewing this as a chance to clarify the facts openly and conclusively stop all rumors, confusion, and disputes,” said Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Context and Connected Incidents
Cardia, who has a previous conviction for financial crime, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The authority announced that the alleged apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff approved a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His intervention was aimed to counter the spread of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of apparitions, crying figures, and so-called seers.
The former Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
