A self-styled visionary who drew hundreds of devotees to a community near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected deception.
Key Accusations and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the figure was sending communications to her, will be tried together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are charged with staging false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of catastrophes to attract donations from their religious followers.
Cardia drew hundreds of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been placed in a makeshift shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scam generated a large sum in donations from the visitors, who believed their money would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also charged with making untrue prophecies, including stating the statue warned her that the devil was planning disasters, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the substance on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its rules on paranormal phenomena as part of a campaign on frauds 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 her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Connected Events
Cardia, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The office said that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff approved a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His action was aimed to combat the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, weeping figures, and so-called prophets.
The former pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
