A so-called visionary who drew many of devotees to a town near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.
Key Accusations and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are charged with orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of catastrophes to attract contributions from their religious followers.
Cardia brought many of people each month to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over a number of years, the alleged scam generated a large sum in donations from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also charged with making false predictions, including claiming the figure alerted her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the figure came from a pig. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its regulations 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 Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Connected Incidents
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, bought the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that alleged visions 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 announced that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff approved a ruling last week directing 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 intervention was intended to counter the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened assertions of visions, crying figures, and so-called seers.
The former pope cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
