so, trying to understand the issue, I found that solution that seems to work, also with php 7.2, for the contact form page
file John -> gavern -> classes -> class.recaptchalib.php
I changed the line 129 from this:
if (trim($answers['success']) == true) {
to this:
if (array_key_exists('success', $answers)) {
and now it's working
is it a correct solution? if so, it's solved for me the question about recaptcha
now contact form page is working fine, but the widget from homepage isn't working (I thought this issue was related to the previous, but it wasn't), showing an An error occured - your message has not been sent. Please try again.
maybe I'd better open a different thread for this?