A self-styled visionary who drew many of devotees to a town near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected fraud.
Key Accusations and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be tried along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are accused of orchestrating fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue forecasts of catastrophes to attract contributions from their Catholic followers.
Cardia drew hundreds of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the alleged scam generated a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds 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 evil was planning calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward 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 her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Connected Incidents
The accused, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority announced that the alleged apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff approved a decree last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, 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 exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of visions, crying figures, and so-called prophets.
The late pope cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
