A so-called visionary who attracted hundreds of pilgrims to a town near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for suspected fraud.
Central Charges and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the figure was sending communications to her, will be tried along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are charged with orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of disasters to solicit donations from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia brought hundreds of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over a number of years, the supposed scheme collected a large sum in donations from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also charged with making false prophecies, including claiming the figure warned her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the blood on the figure came from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on paranormal phenomena as part of a campaign 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,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Related Events
Cardia, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The authority announced that the claimed apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff approved a ruling last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His action was intended to combat the spread of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged assertions of apparitions, weeping statues, and so-called prophets.
The late pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
