A self-styled visionary who attracted hundreds of pilgrims to a community near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.
Central Charges and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the figure was transmitting messages 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 making false predictions of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their religious followers.
Cardia brought many of individuals each month to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scam collected a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also accused of making false prophecies, including claiming the statue warned her that the evil was concocting disasters, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the statue came from a animal. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its regulations on supernatural phenomena 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,” said her legal representative, the attorney.
Context and Related Incidents
The accused, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. 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 “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo authorized a decree last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His action was aimed to combat the spread of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened claims of apparitions, crying figures, and so-called seers.
The late pope cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
