A self-styled visionary who drew many of pilgrims to a town near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been sent to trial for alleged deception.
Central Accusations and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are charged with staging fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false forecasts of disasters to attract contributions from their religious supporters.
Cardia drew many of people monthly to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a hill. Over a number of years, the alleged scheme generated €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards establishing a centre for sick children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of making false predictions, including claiming the statue alerted her that the evil was concocting disasters, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the statue originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a crackdown on scams and hoaxes.
“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, the attorney.
Context and Related Incidents
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, bought the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that alleged visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to a woman 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the alleged visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo authorized a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from sin. His action was aimed to counter the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, weeping statues, and so-called prophets.
The late pope cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
