A so-called visionary who drew many 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 suspected deception.
Central Accusations and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are accused of orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false forecasts of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their Catholic followers.
Cardia brought many of individuals monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been placed in a temporary sanctuary on a hill. Over a number of years, the supposed scam collected a large sum in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a centre for ill children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also charged with issuing untrue prophecies, including stating the statue warned her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the figure came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its rules on supernatural 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,” said her legal representative, the attorney.
Background and Connected Events
Cardia, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the claimed apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff approved a ruling 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 damnation. His action was intended to combat the proliferation of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, weeping statues, and self-styled seers.
The former pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
