A so-called mystic who attracted hundreds of pilgrims to a community near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud.
Key Accusations and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are charged with staging false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false predictions of catastrophes to attract contributions from their religious followers.
Cardia drew many of people each month to Trevignano Romano, 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 supposed scheme collected a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a facility for ill children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of making false predictions, including claiming the figure warned her that the devil was concocting calamities, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared 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,” stated her legal representative, the attorney.
Context and Related Events
The accused, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that supposed visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have shown himself to a woman 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the alleged visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo 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 redeem the world from damnation. His intervention was intended to combat the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of apparitions, crying statues, and self-styled prophets.
The former pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
