A so-called visionary who drew many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for alleged deception.
Key Charges and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the statue was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are accused of staging false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of disasters to solicit contributions from their religious followers.
Cardia drew hundreds of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over a number of years, the alleged scheme generated €365,000 in donations from the visitors, who believed their funds would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making false predictions, including stating the statue warned her that the evil was planning 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 opened an inquiry in 2023 after a detective claimed the substance on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its regulations on paranormal phenomena as part of a crackdown 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 Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Related Incidents
The accused, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, purchased the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that alleged visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to a woman 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The office announced that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff approved a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from sin. His intervention was intended to counter the spread of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of visions, crying statues, and self-styled prophets.
The former Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
