A so-called visionary who drew hundreds of devotees to a community near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for suspected deception.
Central Accusations and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the figure was sending messages to her, will be tried together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are accused of orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of catastrophes to solicit donations from their Catholic followers.
Cardia brought hundreds of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a makeshift shrine on a elevation. Over a number of years, the supposed scam generated a large sum in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a centre for ill children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making false prophecies, including stating the figure warned her that the evil was concocting disasters, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the statue originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on supernatural occurrences 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,” said her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Related Events
The accused, who has a prior sentence for financial crime, purchased the statue in 2016 at a Catholic 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 French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be built in the town. The office said that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff 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 sin. His action was aimed to counter the spread of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of visions, weeping statues, and self-styled prophets.
The late pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
