A so-called visionary who attracted many of pilgrims to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected deception.
Central Charges and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of catastrophes to solicit donations from their Catholic followers.
Cardia drew many of individuals each month to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over several years, the alleged scheme generated a large sum in donations from the pilgrims, who believed their funds would go towards setting up a centre for ill children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also accused of issuing untrue prophecies, including claiming the figure alerted her that the devil was planning calamities, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the substance on the figure came from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its regulations on supernatural occurrences as part of a crackdown on scams and deceptions.
“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 Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Related Incidents
Cardia, who has a prior sentence for financial crime, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the alleged visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff approved a decree last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from sin. His action was aimed to counter the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, weeping statues, and self-styled prophets.
The former pope cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
