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A self-styled visionary who attracted many of devotees to a community near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.

Key Charges and Details

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

They are charged with orchestrating fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false predictions of disasters to attract donations from their religious followers.

Cardia brought many of individuals each month to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the alleged scheme collected €365,000 in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their funds would go towards establishing a centre for sick children.

Further Allegations

Cardia is also charged with issuing false predictions, including stating the statue alerted her that the devil 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 opened an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its rules on supernatural 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,” said Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.

Background and Connected Events

Cardia, who has a prior sentence for financial crime, purchased the statue in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.

News of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that alleged visions 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 requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The office announced that the alleged apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.

Pope Leo authorized a decree last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His action was aimed to combat the spread of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened assertions of visions, crying statues, and so-called seers.

The former Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.