A self-styled visionary who attracted many of pilgrims to a town near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for alleged deception.
Central Accusations and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was sending messages to her, will be tried along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are accused of orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making false forecasts of catastrophes to solicit donations from their Catholic followers.
Cardia drew many of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scam generated a large sum in donations from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a facility for ill children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making false predictions, including claiming the figure alerted her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the substance on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its rules on supernatural occurrences as part of a crackdown on scams 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.
Background and Related Events
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the claimed apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo approved a ruling last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His intervention was intended to counter the spread of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of visions, weeping statues, and self-styled prophets.
The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
