A so-called mystic who drew hundreds of pilgrims to a town near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for suspected deception.
Central Accusations and Particulars
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 charged with staging false visions of the Virgin Mary and making false forecasts of disasters to solicit donations from their Catholic followers.
Cardia drew many of individuals each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over a number of years, the supposed scam collected €365,000 in donations from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a facility for ill children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making false prophecies, including stating the statue alerted her that the devil was concocting disasters, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the figure came from a pig. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its rules on supernatural occurrences as part of a campaign on scams 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 her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Connected Incidents
The accused, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that supposed visions of Jesus in the European 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 “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be built in the town. The office said that the claimed apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo approved a decree last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His action was intended to combat the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, weeping figures, and so-called seers.
The former pope cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
