A so-called mystic who attracted hundreds of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for suspected deception.
Central Charges and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are charged with staging false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false forecasts of catastrophes to attract contributions from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia drew many of people monthly to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over a number of years, the alleged scheme collected €365,000 in donations from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also accused of issuing false predictions, including stating the statue alerted her that the evil was concocting disasters, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the statue came from a animal. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its rules on supernatural phenomena 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,” said Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Background and Connected Events
Cardia, who has a previous sentence for financial crime, bought the figure in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that alleged visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo approved a ruling last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His action was aimed to combat the spread of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened assertions of visions, crying statues, and self-styled seers.
The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
