A self-styled visionary who attracted hundreds of pilgrims to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected deception.
Key Accusations and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be tried along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are accused of orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue forecasts of disasters to solicit donations from their religious supporters.
Cardia brought many of people each month to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a elevation. Over several years, the alleged scam collected a large sum in donations from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a facility for ill children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also charged with issuing untrue predictions, including claiming the statue alerted her that the evil was planning calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a detective asserted the blood on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on supernatural phenomena 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, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Related Events
Cardia, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that supposed visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have shown himself to a woman 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The authority announced that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff approved a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His action was aimed to counter the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of visions, weeping statues, and self-styled seers.
The late pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
