A self-styled visionary who attracted many of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for suspected deception.
Central Charges and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the statue was sending communications to her, will be tried along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are accused of orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of catastrophes to solicit donations from their religious followers.
Cardia brought many of people monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift shrine on a elevation. Over a number of years, the alleged scam collected a large sum in donations from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards establishing a centre for sick children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also charged with making false predictions, including stating the figure alerted her that the devil was concocting disasters, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the statue came from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on paranormal phenomena as part of a crackdown on frauds and hoaxes.
“Despite the irony, she finds comfort, viewing this as a chance to clarify the facts openly and conclusively stop all rumors, confusion, and disputes,” said Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Context and Connected Events
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that supposed visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office announced that the alleged apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo approved a decree last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His action was intended to counter the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, crying figures, and self-styled seers.
The late pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
