A self-styled visionary who attracted hundreds of devotees 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.
Central Accusations and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was sending communications to her, will be prosecuted along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are charged with staging false visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of catastrophes to attract donations from their Catholic followers.
Cardia drew many of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scheme generated €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also charged with issuing false predictions, including stating the figure alerted her that the devil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on supernatural 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,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Related Events
Cardia, who has a prior sentence for financial crime, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
News of the trial 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 said to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The authority announced that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo approved a decree last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His intervention was intended to counter the spread of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened assertions of visions, weeping figures, and so-called prophets.
The former Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
