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A self-styled visionary who attracted many of pilgrims to a town near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud.

Central Accusations and Details

Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.

They are accused of orchestrating fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue predictions of disasters to solicit contributions from their Catholic followers.

Cardia brought hundreds of individuals each month to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been placed in a makeshift shrine on a elevation. Over a number of years, the alleged scheme generated €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 accused of issuing false predictions, including stating the statue warned her that the evil 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 initiated an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the statue came from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its regulations on paranormal occurrences as part of a crackdown on frauds 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,” stated her legal representative, the attorney.

Context and Related Events

Cardia, who has a prior sentence for financial crime, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Međugorje.

News of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that alleged visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office announced that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.

The pontiff approved a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from sin. His intervention was aimed to counter the spread of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged assertions of visions, crying statues, and self-styled prophets.

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