A self-styled visionary who attracted hundreds of pilgrims to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for alleged deception.
Key Charges and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the statue was sending messages to her, will be tried along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are charged with orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue forecasts of catastrophes to attract contributions from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia drew many of people each month to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scheme collected a large sum in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of making untrue predictions, including stating the statue alerted her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the substance on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on supernatural phenomena as part of a crackdown on frauds and deceptions.
“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,” said her legal representative, the attorney.
Context and Connected Events
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, purchased the figure in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to a woman 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office announced that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo authorized a decree last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His action was aimed to combat the spread of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, weeping figures, and so-called prophets.
The former Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
