A so-called mystic who attracted hundreds of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been sent to trial for alleged fraud.
Key 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 the coming year.
They are charged with staging fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of disasters to attract donations from their religious supporters.
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 a number of years, the alleged scheme generated €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also accused of issuing untrue predictions, including stating the statue alerted her that the devil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its regulations on supernatural 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 prior sentence for financial crime, purchased the figure in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that supposed visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the alleged apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff authorized a decree last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from sin. His intervention was aimed to counter the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of visions, crying figures, and self-styled prophets.
The former Pope Francis warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
