A self-styled mystic who drew hundreds of devotees to a town near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud.
Key Accusations and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was sending communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are charged with orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their religious supporters.
Cardia brought many of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scheme collected €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also accused of making untrue prophecies, including stating the figure alerted her that the evil was concocting disasters, 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 opened an investigation in 2023 after a detective asserted the substance on the figure came from a pig. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a campaign on frauds and hoaxes.
“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.
Background and Connected Incidents
The accused, who has a previous conviction for financial crime, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged 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 “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The authority announced that the alleged apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff 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 save the world from sin. His action was intended to counter the spread of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of visions, weeping statues, and self-styled seers.
The late pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
