A self-styled mystic who drew many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.
Key Accusations and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are charged with staging false visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of catastrophes to attract donations from their religious supporters.
Cardia brought hundreds of individuals each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a hill. Over a number of years, the alleged scheme collected €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also accused of making false prophecies, including claiming the figure warned her that the evil was concocting disasters, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on supernatural phenomena 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, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Related Incidents
The accused, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that alleged visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office announced that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff approved 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 sin. His action was aimed to combat the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of visions, weeping statues, and self-styled seers.
The former pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
