A self-styled visionary who attracted many of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for alleged fraud.
Central Accusations and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the figure was sending communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue predictions of disasters to solicit contributions from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia drew hundreds of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the alleged scam generated €365,000 in donations from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a centre for sick children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making false predictions, including stating the statue warned her that the evil was concocting disasters, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a campaign on scams 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,” said her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Connected Events
The accused, who has a prior sentence for financial crime, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The authority announced that the claimed apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff approved a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from sin. His intervention was aimed to counter the proliferation of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged assertions of visions, crying figures, and so-called seers.
The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
