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

Central Accusations and Details

Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.

They are accused of staging fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of disasters to solicit contributions from their religious followers.

Cardia brought many of individuals each month to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a makeshift shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scam collected a large sum in donations from the pilgrims, who believed their funds would go towards establishing a centre for sick children.

Further Claims

Cardia is also accused of issuing false predictions, including stating the statue alerted her that the devil was planning disasters, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.

Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a detective asserted the blood on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on paranormal phenomena as part of a campaign on frauds 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, the attorney.

Context and Related Incidents

The accused, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought the figure in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Međugorje.

News of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated 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 a woman 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the alleged apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.

The pontiff authorized a ruling last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His intervention was aimed to counter the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, weeping figures, and so-called seers.

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