A so-called visionary who attracted hundreds of devotees to a community near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for alleged deception.
Key Accusations and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the figure was sending communications to her, will be tried along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are accused of orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue predictions of catastrophes to attract donations from their religious followers.
Cardia brought hundreds of people each month to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scheme generated a large sum in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with issuing untrue prophecies, including stating the figure alerted her that the devil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a detective claimed the substance on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a campaign 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 Related Incidents
The accused, who has a previous conviction for financial crime, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. 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 constructed in the town. The authority said that the claimed apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo approved 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 damnation. His intervention was aimed to counter the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, crying statues, and so-called seers.
The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
