A so-called mystic who drew hundreds of devotees to a town near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected deception.
Central Charges and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the figure was sending communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are charged with orchestrating fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of catastrophes to solicit donations from their religious followers.
Cardia brought many of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary sanctuary on a hill. Over a number of years, the alleged scheme generated a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of issuing untrue prophecies, including claiming the figure warned her that the devil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the blood on the statue came from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its regulations on paranormal 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, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Related Events
The accused, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
Reports of the trial 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 shown himself to a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the alleged visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo authorized a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His intervention was intended to counter the spread of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, crying figures, and so-called seers.
The former Pope Francis warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
