A so-called visionary who attracted hundreds of devotees to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for alleged deception.
Key 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 accused of orchestrating fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of catastrophes to attract donations from their Catholic followers.
Cardia brought hundreds of individuals monthly to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the supposed scheme collected a large sum in donations from the pilgrims, who believed their funds would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of making false predictions, including stating the figure warned her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the substance on the statue originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its regulations on supernatural occurrences 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,” said her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Connected Events
The accused, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the figure in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that supposed 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 guarantee the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The office said that the alleged apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff authorized a decree last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His action was intended to counter the spread of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened claims of apparitions, crying statues, and self-styled prophets.
The former Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
