A self-styled visionary who drew many of devotees to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected deception.
Key Charges and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are accused of staging false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false forecasts of disasters to attract contributions from their Catholic followers.
Cardia drew hundreds of people monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over a number of years, the supposed scheme generated a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also charged with issuing untrue predictions, including stating the statue alerted her that the devil was planning calamities, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a detective asserted the blood on the figure came from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its regulations 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 Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Background and Connected Events
Cardia, who has a prior sentence for financial crime, purchased the statue in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that supposed visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the alleged apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo authorized a ruling last week directing 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 intervention was aimed to counter the proliferation of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened assertions of visions, weeping statues, and so-called prophets.
The former pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
