A so-called visionary who attracted hundreds of pilgrims to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for alleged deception.
Key Accusations and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are charged with staging false visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false predictions of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their Catholic followers.
Cardia drew many of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been positioned in a makeshift shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scheme generated a large sum in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also charged with issuing untrue prophecies, including stating the statue warned her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the substance on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on paranormal phenomena as part of a campaign on frauds and deceptions.
“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.
Context and Connected Events
The accused, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that supposed visions of Jesus in the European 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 purification of sin be built in the town. The office said that the alleged apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff authorized a decree last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His intervention was intended to combat the spread of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened claims of visions, weeping figures, and self-styled prophets.
The former Pope Francis warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
