A so-called visionary who attracted many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud.
Central Accusations and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the figure was sending messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are charged with staging false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue forecasts of catastrophes to attract donations from their religious followers.
Cardia drew many of people monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the alleged scheme collected a large sum in donations from the pilgrims, who believed their funds would go towards establishing a facility for ill children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making untrue predictions, including stating the statue warned her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened 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 paranormal occurrences as part of a crackdown on scams 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,” stated her legal representative, the attorney.
Background and Related Incidents
The accused, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged visions 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 requesting that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The office announced that the alleged visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff approved a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to refer to 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 exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, crying statues, and so-called seers.
The former pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
