A self-styled visionary who attracted many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been sent to trial for suspected fraud.
Central Accusations and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the figure was sending communications to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are accused of staging fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of disasters to attract donations from their religious supporters.
Cardia brought many of individuals each month to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a temporary sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scheme generated €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also accused of issuing false predictions, including claiming the statue alerted her that the evil was planning calamities, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a detective asserted the substance on the statue originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its rules on supernatural occurrences as part of a crackdown on scams and hoaxes.
“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 Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Context and Related Incidents
The accused, who has a previous conviction for financial crime, purchased the statue in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the purification of sin be built in the town. The office said that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff authorized a decree last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His intervention was intended to combat the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, weeping figures, and self-styled prophets.
The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
