A so-called mystic who attracted hundreds of devotees to a town near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for alleged deception.
Central Accusations and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of orchestrating fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia brought hundreds of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scam generated a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making false predictions, including stating the statue alerted 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 opened an inquiry in 2023 after a detective asserted the blood on the statue originated from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its regulations on paranormal occurrences as part of a crackdown on frauds and hoaxes.
“Despite the irony, she finds comfort, viewing this as a chance to clarify the facts openly and conclusively stop all rumors, confusion, and disputes,” said her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Related Events
Cardia, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the claimed visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff authorized a decree last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His action was intended to counter the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of visions, crying figures, and so-called seers.
The former Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
