A so-called mystic who attracted many of pilgrims to a town near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for alleged deception.
Key Accusations and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the figure was sending messages to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are charged with orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of catastrophes to attract contributions from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia brought many of people each month to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the alleged scheme collected a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a centre for ill children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also charged with making untrue prophecies, including stating the statue warned her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on supernatural occurrences as part of a campaign on frauds and deceptions.
“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, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Related Events
Cardia, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the alleged apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff approved a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from sin. His action was aimed to combat the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, crying statues, and so-called seers.
The former pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
