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A self-styled visionary who attracted hundreds of devotees to a town near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for suspected deception.

Central Charges and Particulars

Gisella Cardia, who also stated the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be tried together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.

They are accused of orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of disasters to solicit contributions from their Catholic followers.

Cardia drew many of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scam generated a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.

Further Claims

Cardia is also accused of making untrue prophecies, including stating the statue alerted her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.

Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the figure came from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its regulations on paranormal phenomena 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.

Background and Connected Incidents

The accused, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.

News of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have shown himself to a woman 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The office announced 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 helped her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His intervention was intended to combat the spread of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged assertions of visions, weeping figures, and so-called seers.

The late Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.