A so-called visionary who attracted many of devotees to a community near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been sent to trial for suspected deception.
Central Accusations and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the statue was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are charged with orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of catastrophes to solicit donations from their religious supporters.
Cardia drew many of individuals each month to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the supposed scheme generated a large sum in donations from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards establishing a facility for ill children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also accused of issuing false prophecies, including claiming the statue warned her that the devil 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 opened an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its regulations on supernatural occurrences as part of a crackdown 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,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Context and Connected Incidents
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, bought the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office 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 a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the alleged apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo approved a decree last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from sin. His action was intended to counter the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged claims of visions, weeping statues, and so-called seers.
The former Pope Francis warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
