A so-called mystic who drew hundreds of pilgrims to a community near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been sent to trial for alleged deception.
Central Charges and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the statue was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are accused of staging fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue forecasts of disasters to solicit contributions from their religious supporters.
Cardia brought hundreds of individuals monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the alleged scam collected €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a centre for sick children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also accused of making untrue predictions, including stating the statue warned her that the devil was concocting disasters, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the blood on the figure came from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its regulations 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 prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought the figure in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated 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 a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The office said that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo authorized a decree last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His action was intended to combat the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened claims of apparitions, crying figures, and self-styled seers.
The former Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
