A so-called mystic who attracted 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 fraud.
Key Accusations and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are charged with staging false visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue predictions of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their religious supporters.
Cardia brought hundreds of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over several years, the supposed scheme collected €365,000 in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a centre for sick children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of making untrue prophecies, including claiming the statue warned her that the devil was planning calamities, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the blood on the figure came from a pig. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on supernatural phenomena as part of a crackdown on frauds 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, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Related Events
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the alleged apparitions 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 assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His action was aimed to counter the proliferation of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of visions, weeping statues, and so-called seers.
The former pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
