A so-called visionary who drew hundreds of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.
Central Charges and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are charged with orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of catastrophes to attract donations from their religious followers.
Cardia drew many of individuals each month to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the alleged scheme generated a large sum in donations from the visitors, who believed their money would go towards establishing a centre for ill children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with issuing false prophecies, including claiming the statue warned her that the evil was planning calamities, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its regulations on paranormal phenomena as part of a campaign 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,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Connected Events
Cardia, who has a previous conviction 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 alleged apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority announced that the alleged visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff approved a decree last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from sin. His action was intended to counter the proliferation of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened claims of visions, weeping figures, and so-called seers.
The former pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
