A so-called mystic who attracted many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for suspected deception.
Key Charges and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are accused of staging false visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their religious followers.
Cardia brought hundreds of individuals each month to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the supposed scheme generated a large sum in donations from the visitors, who believed their funds would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also accused of making false predictions, including claiming the figure alerted her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its rules on supernatural occurrences as part of a crackdown on scams 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,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Connected Incidents
The accused, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports 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 deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to a woman 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 visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff approved 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 counter the proliferation of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, crying statues, and so-called prophets.
The late Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
