A so-called visionary who drew hundreds of devotees to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.
Central Accusations and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the figure was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of staging fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue forecasts of disasters to attract contributions from their religious followers.
Cardia brought many of individuals monthly to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over several years, the supposed scam generated a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards establishing a centre for ill children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also charged with making untrue predictions, including claiming the statue alerted her that the evil was planning calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the substance on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver 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,” said her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Connected Incidents
Cardia, who has a prior sentence for financial crime, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that supposed visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the purification of sin be built in the town. The office announced that the alleged apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff approved a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His action was intended to counter the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of visions, weeping statues, and so-called prophets.
The former pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
