A so-called visionary who drew many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.
Key Accusations and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be tried along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are accused of orchestrating fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of disasters to solicit donations from their Catholic followers.
Cardia brought many of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift shrine on a hill. Over a number of years, the alleged scam generated a large sum in offerings from the visitors, who believed their money would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of making untrue prophecies, including stating the figure alerted her that the devil was concocting disasters, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its rules on paranormal occurrences as part of a campaign on scams and hoaxes.
“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.
Context and Related Incidents
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 religious authority declared that alleged visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have shown himself to a woman 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the purification of sin be built in the town. The office said that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff authorized a ruling last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His intervention was aimed to counter the proliferation of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of visions, crying figures, and self-styled prophets.
The late pope cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
