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A so-called visionary who drew many of pilgrims 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 deception.

Key Charges and Particulars

Gisella Cardia, who also stated the statue was sending messages to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.

They are accused of orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of disasters to attract donations from their Catholic supporters.

Cardia brought many of people each month to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the supposed scheme collected a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.

Additional Claims

Cardia is also accused of making false prophecies, including claiming the statue warned her that the evil was planning calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.

Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the blood on the statue originated from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on paranormal occurrences 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 Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.

Context and Related Events

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

News of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the purification of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the claimed visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.

The pontiff approved a decree last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His intervention was intended to combat the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of apparitions, weeping figures, and so-called seers.

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