A self-styled visionary who drew many of devotees to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for alleged deception.
Key Accusations and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was sending messages to her, will be tried along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are charged with orchestrating fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue predictions of disasters to attract contributions from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia brought many of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the alleged scheme collected €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards establishing a centre for ill children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also accused of issuing false predictions, including claiming the figure alerted her that the devil was concocting calamities, 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 claimed the blood on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its rules on paranormal occurrences as part of a crackdown 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 Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Background and Connected Incidents
Cardia, who has a previous conviction for financial crime, purchased the statue in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that supposed visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority announced that the claimed apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff approved a decree last week instructing 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 aimed to combat the proliferation of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of visions, crying figures, and self-styled seers.
The late pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
