A self-styled mystic who attracted hundreds of pilgrims to a town near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for alleged deception.
Central Accusations and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was sending messages to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are accused of staging fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false forecasts of disasters to attract donations from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia drew many of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a makeshift shrine on a hill. Over a number of years, the alleged scam generated a large sum in offerings from the visitors, who believed their funds would go towards setting up a centre for ill children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also accused of making untrue prophecies, including stating the statue warned her that the devil was planning disasters, for example an tremor that would destroy 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 private investigator asserted the blood on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on paranormal occurrences as part of a crackdown 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,” stated her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Connected Events
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, bought the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that alleged visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have appeared to a woman 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the purification of sin be built in the town. The office said that the claimed apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff approved a ruling last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His action was intended to combat the spread of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened claims of visions, weeping figures, and self-styled seers.
The former Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
