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A so-called visionary who attracted many of pilgrims to a town near Rome by claiming that a figure 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 communications to her, will be tried along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.

They are charged with orchestrating fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue predictions of catastrophes to attract contributions from their Catholic followers.

Cardia brought hundreds of individuals monthly to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over a number of years, the supposed scheme collected a large sum in donations from the pilgrims, who believed their funds would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.

Additional Allegations

Cardia is also accused of making untrue prophecies, including stating the figure warned her that the devil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would destroy 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 blood on the statue came from a animal. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on paranormal occurrences as part of a crackdown on frauds and hoaxes.

“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 Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.

Context and Related Events

Cardia, who has a previous sentence for financial crime, purchased the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the claimed visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.

Pope Leo authorized a ruling last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His action was intended to counter the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened claims of apparitions, weeping statues, and self-styled prophets.

The former pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.