A self-styled visionary who drew many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.
Central Accusations and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the figure was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April 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 followers.
Cardia brought many of individuals monthly to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been positioned in a makeshift shrine on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scheme generated a large sum in donations from the visitors, who trusted their funds would go towards establishing a centre for ill children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of issuing false predictions, including claiming the figure warned her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the figure came from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on supernatural phenomena 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,” stated her legal representative, the attorney.
Background and Related Events
The accused, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority 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 shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The office said that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff authorized a decree last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His intervention was aimed to counter the proliferation of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, crying statues, and so-called prophets.
The late pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
