A self-styled visionary who attracted hundreds of pilgrims 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 Details
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the statue was sending messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are accused of orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue forecasts of catastrophes to attract contributions from their religious followers.
Cardia drew many of individuals monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over several years, the alleged scheme collected €365,000 in offerings from the visitors, who believed their money would go towards establishing a centre for sick children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also charged with making false prophecies, including claiming the figure alerted her that the devil was concocting disasters, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a campaign on scams 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 her legal representative, the attorney.
Context and Connected Events
The accused, who has a prior sentence for financial crime, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to a woman 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority announced that the alleged visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo authorized a ruling 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 intervention was aimed to combat the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, weeping statues, and self-styled seers.
The former pope cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
