A so-called mystic who attracted hundreds of devotees to a town near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud.
Central Charges and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of staging false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making false forecasts of catastrophes to attract contributions from their religious followers.
Cardia drew many of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the supposed scam generated €365,000 in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a centre for ill children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making untrue predictions, including claiming the statue alerted her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the statue originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on paranormal phenomena as part of a campaign on frauds and deceptions.
“Despite the irony, she finds comfort, viewing this as a chance to clarify the facts openly and conclusively stop all rumors, confusion, and disputes,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Background and Connected Events
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, bought the statue in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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 shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the purification of sin be built in the town. The authority announced that the claimed visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff 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 sin. His intervention was aimed to counter the spread of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, crying figures, and self-styled prophets.
The former pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
