🔗 Share this article

A so-called visionary who drew many of devotees to a town near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for alleged deception.

Key Charges and Details

Gisella Cardia, who also stated the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.

They are accused of staging fake visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of disasters to attract contributions 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 positioned in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the alleged scheme collected €365,000 in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a facility for ill children.

Further Claims

Cardia is also charged with issuing untrue prophecies, including claiming the statue warned her that the devil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.

Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a detective asserted the blood on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its regulations on paranormal phenomena as part of a campaign on scams and hoaxes.

“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, Solange Marchingoli.

Background and Related Events

The accused, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.

Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that supposed visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the claimed visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.

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 save the world from damnation. His intervention was aimed to combat the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of apparitions, crying statues, and so-called seers.

The late Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.