A self-styled visionary who drew many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected deception.
Central Accusations and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are charged with orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue forecasts of disasters to attract donations from their religious supporters.
Cardia drew many of individuals each month to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scam collected a large sum in offerings from the visitors, who believed their money would go towards setting up a facility for ill children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also charged with issuing untrue prophecies, including stating the figure alerted her that the evil was planning calamities, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the substance on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on paranormal occurrences as part of a crackdown on frauds 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 Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Connected Incidents
The accused, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The authority announced that the alleged apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff authorized a ruling last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from sin. His intervention was intended to combat the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of visions, weeping figures, and self-styled seers.
The former Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
