A so-called visionary who attracted hundreds of devotees to a community near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected deception.
Central Accusations and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was sending messages to her, will be prosecuted together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are accused of orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false predictions of disasters to solicit donations from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia drew many of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scam generated €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards setting up a facility for ill children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also accused of issuing false predictions, including stating the figure warned her that the devil was planning calamities, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a detective claimed the substance on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on supernatural phenomena as part of a campaign on scams 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,” said Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Related Incidents
The accused, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought the figure in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the purification of sin be built in the town. The office announced that the claimed apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff authorized a ruling last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His action was aimed to combat the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of visions, crying figures, and so-called prophets.
The late pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
