A so-called visionary who drew many of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been sent to trial for alleged fraud.
Key Accusations and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the figure was sending messages to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of disasters to solicit contributions from their religious supporters.
Cardia brought many of individuals monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the alleged scheme generated €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also accused of issuing untrue predictions, including claiming the statue alerted her that the evil was planning calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a detective claimed the substance on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a campaign 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 Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Connected Incidents
The accused, who has a previous conviction for financial crime, bought the figure in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that alleged visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to a woman 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The authority announced that the claimed apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo authorized a decree last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from sin. His action was aimed to combat the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged claims of visions, crying figures, and so-called prophets.
The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
