A self-styled visionary who drew hundreds of devotees to a town near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for alleged deception.
Key Charges and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the figure was sending messages to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are accused of staging false visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of catastrophes to solicit donations from their Catholic followers.
Cardia brought many of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the supposed scheme collected a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also accused of making false prophecies, including claiming the statue alerted her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a detective asserted the blood on the statue originated from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its regulations on paranormal occurrences as part of a campaign on scams and deceptions.
“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 her legal representative, the attorney.
Background and Related Incidents
Cardia, who has a previous sentence for financial crime, purchased the figure in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the alleged apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo approved a decree last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His intervention was aimed to counter the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of visions, weeping figures, and so-called seers.
The former Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
