A so-called 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 suspected deception.
Central Charges and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was transmitting communications to her, will be tried together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue predictions of disasters to solicit contributions from their Catholic followers.
Cardia brought hundreds of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over a number of years, the supposed scam collected a large sum in offerings from the visitors, who believed their funds would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with issuing false predictions, including stating the figure alerted her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a detective asserted the blood on the statue came from a animal. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its rules on paranormal occurrences as part of a campaign on scams and hoaxes.
“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,” said Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Context and Related Events
Cardia, who has a previous sentence for financial crime, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have appeared to a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the claimed visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff approved a decree last week directing Catholics not to refer to 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 extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of visions, weeping figures, and so-called seers.
The former Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
