A so-called mystic who drew hundreds of devotees to a community near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been sent to trial for alleged fraud.
Key Charges and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the figure was transmitting messages to her, will be tried along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are charged with staging false visions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of disasters to solicit donations from their Catholic followers.
Cardia drew 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 shrine on a hill. Over a number of years, the supposed scam generated a large sum in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making false predictions, including claiming the statue alerted her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective asserted the substance on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its rules on paranormal 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 Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Connected Incidents
The accused, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority announced that the claimed apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo authorized a ruling 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 damnation. His action was aimed to combat the proliferation of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, crying statues, and so-called prophets.
The former pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
