A so-called visionary who drew hundreds of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for alleged deception.
Central Accusations and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the figure was transmitting messages to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are charged with orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue forecasts of catastrophes to attract contributions from their Catholic followers.
Cardia brought hundreds of individuals monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a makeshift shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the alleged scheme generated a large sum in donations from the pilgrims, who believed their funds would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also charged with making false prophecies, including stating the statue alerted her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the substance on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its rules on supernatural occurrences as part of a crackdown on scams and deceptions.
“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 her legal representative, the attorney.
Background and Connected Events
The accused, who has a prior sentence for financial crime, bought the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. 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 constructed in the town. The authority announced that the alleged apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo 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 save the world from damnation. His action was aimed to counter the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened claims of visions, weeping figures, and so-called seers.
The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
