A so-called visionary who attracted hundreds of pilgrims to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for alleged fraud.
Key Charges and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was sending communications to her, will be tried along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are charged with staging false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of disasters to attract contributions from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia drew hundreds of individuals monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a makeshift shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scam collected 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 untrue prophecies, including stating the figure warned her that the evil was concocting disasters, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the blood on the figure came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its rules on paranormal occurrences as part of a crackdown on scams 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 her legal representative, the attorney.
Background and Related Events
The accused, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo approved a decree last week instructing Catholics not to call 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 combat the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, weeping statues, and self-styled seers.
The late pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
