A self-styled mystic who drew hundreds of pilgrims to a community near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.
Central Accusations and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was sending communications to her, will be tried along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are charged with staging false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of catastrophes to attract donations from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia brought hundreds of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over a number of years, the supposed scheme collected €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with issuing untrue prophecies, including claiming the figure warned her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the substance on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a crackdown 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,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Related Events
Cardia, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought the figure in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that supposed visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority announced that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo approved a decree 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 action was aimed to combat the spread of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, crying statues, and so-called prophets.
The late Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
