A self-styled mystic who drew many of devotees to a community near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud.
Key Accusations and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the statue was sending messages to her, will be tried together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are charged with orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of disasters to attract donations from their Catholic followers.
Cardia brought hundreds of individuals each month to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the supposed scheme collected a large sum in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with issuing untrue predictions, including stating the statue warned her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a detective asserted the blood on the statue came from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its rules on supernatural occurrences as part of a crackdown 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,” said Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Related Events
Cardia, who has a previous conviction for financial crime, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to a woman 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the alleged apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo approved a ruling last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from sin. His action was aimed to counter the spread of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of visions, weeping statues, and so-called seers.
The former pope cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
