A so-called visionary who attracted hundreds of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud.
Central Charges and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the figure was sending communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of staging false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue predictions of catastrophes to solicit donations from their Catholic followers.
Cardia drew many of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the alleged scam collected a large sum in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a centre for ill children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also accused of issuing false prophecies, including claiming the statue alerted her that the devil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a detective asserted the substance on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its regulations on paranormal phenomena as part of a crackdown on scams 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,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Related Events
The accused, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have shown himself to a woman 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff authorized a decree last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from sin. His intervention was intended to combat the spread of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened assertions of visions, crying figures, and so-called prophets.
The former pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
