A self-styled mystic who drew hundreds of devotees to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been sent to trial for alleged deception.
Key Charges and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the figure was sending messages to her, will be tried along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are accused of orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false forecasts of catastrophes to solicit donations from their religious followers.
Cardia drew hundreds of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the alleged scheme generated €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a facility for ill children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also charged with making false predictions, including claiming the statue warned her that the evil was concocting disasters, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward 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 her legal representative, the attorney.
Background and Related Incidents
Cardia, who has a previous conviction for financial crime, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the purification of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the alleged apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo authorized a decree last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His action was intended to counter the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of visions, weeping statues, and so-called seers.
The late pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
