A self-styled visionary who attracted 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 deception.
Central Accusations and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was sending communications to her, will be tried along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of staging fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue forecasts of catastrophes to solicit donations from their religious supporters.
Cardia brought many of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scam collected €365,000 in donations from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a centre for ill children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also charged with issuing untrue predictions, including claiming the figure warned her that the evil was concocting disasters, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the substance on the figure came from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a campaign 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,” said her legal representative, the attorney.
Context and Related Events
Cardia, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee 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 ruling last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, 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 extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of apparitions, weeping figures, and self-styled prophets.
The late Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
