A self-styled mystic who drew 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 Charges and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was sending communications to her, will be prosecuted together 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 catastrophes to solicit 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 placed in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the alleged scheme collected a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards establishing a centre for ill children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also accused of making false predictions, including claiming the statue warned her that the devil was planning disasters, 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 inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the blood on the figure came from a animal. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its regulations on paranormal 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,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Context and Related Incidents
The accused, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the figure in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the European 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 “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo authorized a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His action was intended to combat the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened assertions of visions, weeping figures, and so-called seers.
The former Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
