A self-styled visionary who attracted hundreds of pilgrims to a community near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for suspected deception.
Key Accusations and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be tried together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are charged with staging false visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of catastrophes to solicit donations from their Catholic followers.
Cardia brought hundreds of individuals each month to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scam collected a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with issuing false predictions, including stating the figure alerted her that the evil was planning calamities, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its rules on supernatural phenomena as part of a crackdown 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 her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Connected Events
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority 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 purification of sin be built in the town. The office announced that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo authorized a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His action was intended to counter the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of visions, crying figures, and so-called prophets.
The late Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
