A self-styled visionary who drew many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for alleged fraud.
Key Charges and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the figure was sending communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are accused of orchestrating fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of catastrophes to attract contributions from their religious followers.
Cardia brought hundreds of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over a number of years, the supposed scheme collected €365,000 in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a facility for ill children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also accused of making untrue predictions, including stating the statue alerted her that the evil was concocting disasters, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the blood on the statue originated from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its regulations on supernatural occurrences as part of a campaign on scams and deceptions.
“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,” stated her legal representative, the attorney.
Context and Connected Events
The accused, who has a previous sentence for financial crime, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority 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 “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The authority announced that the alleged 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 assisted her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His action was intended to counter the proliferation of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, weeping figures, and so-called seers.
The former pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
