🔗 Share this article

A so-called visionary who attracted many of devotees to a town near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.

Central Accusations and Particulars

Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was sending messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.

They are charged with staging fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue forecasts of disasters to attract donations 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 positioned in a makeshift shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the alleged scheme generated €365,000 in offerings from the visitors, who believed their funds would go towards setting up a centre for ill children.

Additional Claims

Cardia is also charged with issuing false prophecies, including claiming the figure alerted her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.

Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the statue originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on supernatural occurrences as part of a crackdown on frauds 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,” said Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.

Background and Connected Incidents

The accused, who has a previous sentence for financial crime, bought the figure in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Međugorje.

News of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the European 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 ensure the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the alleged visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.

Pope Leo authorized a decree last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His action was intended to counter the proliferation of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, crying figures, and self-styled prophets.

The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.