A so-called visionary who drew many of pilgrims 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.
Central Charges and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are charged with staging fake visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false predictions of disasters to attract contributions from their Catholic followers.
Cardia drew hundreds of people each month to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scam generated a large sum in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a facility for ill children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also accused of issuing untrue prophecies, including stating the statue alerted her that the devil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a detective asserted the blood on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward 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,” stated her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Connected Incidents
The accused, who has a previous conviction for financial crime, bought the statue in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have shown himself to a woman 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the claimed apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo approved a decree last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His action was intended to counter the spread of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, crying statues, and so-called seers.
The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
