A so-called visionary who drew hundreds of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for alleged fraud.
Central Accusations and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be tried together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of disasters to attract donations from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia drew hundreds of people 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 several years, the supposed scheme collected a large sum in offerings from the visitors, who believed their money would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also accused of issuing false prophecies, including stating the figure alerted her that the devil was concocting disasters, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry 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 paranormal phenomena as part of a crackdown 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 her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Related Events
Cardia, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the purification of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the alleged apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff authorized a decree last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His intervention was intended to counter the spread of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, weeping statues, and so-called seers.
The former Pope Francis warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
