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A self-styled visionary who drew hundreds of pilgrims to a town near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been sent to trial for alleged deception.

Central Accusations and Particulars

Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be tried along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.

They are charged with orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of disasters to solicit donations from their religious followers.

Cardia drew hundreds of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over a number of years, the supposed scheme generated €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who believed their funds would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.

Additional Claims

Cardia is also charged with making false predictions, including stating the statue alerted her that the evil was planning calamities, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.

Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the blood on the figure came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules 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,” stated her legal representative, the attorney.

Context and Connected Events

The accused, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have appeared to a woman 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the claimed apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.

Pope Leo authorized a ruling last week directing 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 action was aimed to counter the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of visions, crying statues, and self-styled seers.

The late pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.