A self-styled mystic who attracted many of devotees to a community near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud.
Key Accusations and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was sending communications to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are accused of staging false visions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of catastrophes to solicit donations from their religious supporters.
Cardia drew hundreds of individuals 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 hill. Over several years, the alleged scheme generated €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who believed their funds would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also charged with issuing false prophecies, including stating the statue alerted her that the devil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a detective asserted the blood on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a campaign 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,” stated her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Related Incidents
Cardia, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have shown himself to a woman 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The office 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 damnation. His intervention was aimed to counter the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, crying statues, and so-called prophets.
The former Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
