A self-styled visionary who drew many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected fraud.
Key Charges and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the figure was sending messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are charged with staging false visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false forecasts of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their religious supporters.
Cardia brought hundreds of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scam generated €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their funds would go towards setting up a facility for ill children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making false predictions, including stating the figure warned her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the substance on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on supernatural occurrences 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,” said Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Connected Events
The accused, who has a prior sentence for financial crime, bought the figure in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that supposed visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have appeared to a woman 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The office announced that the claimed apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo authorized a decree last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His action was aimed to combat the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of visions, crying statues, and so-called prophets.
The late pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
