A self-styled visionary who attracted hundreds of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for alleged fraud.
Central Charges and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the figure was transmitting messages to her, will be tried along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are charged with staging fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of disasters to solicit contributions from their Catholic followers.
Cardia drew many of people monthly to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over several years, the alleged scam collected €365,000 in donations from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of making untrue prophecies, 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 investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the substance on the figure originated 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 campaign on frauds and deceptions.
“Despite the irony, she finds comfort, viewing this as a chance to clarify the facts openly and conclusively stop all rumors, confusion, and disputes,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Background and Related Incidents
Cardia, who has a previous conviction for financial crime, purchased the figure in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that supposed visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office announced that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo approved a decree last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His action was intended to counter the spread of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of apparitions, crying statues, and self-styled seers.
The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
