A so-called mystic who drew hundreds of devotees to a community near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected 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 false visions of the Virgin Mary and making false forecasts of disasters to attract contributions from their religious supporters.
Cardia drew many of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over a number of years, the alleged scheme generated a large sum in offerings from the visitors, who believed their funds would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also charged with issuing untrue prophecies, including stating the figure alerted her that the devil was concocting calamities, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its regulations on paranormal phenomena as part of a crackdown on scams and deceptions.
“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, the attorney.
Background and Related Events
Cardia, who has a previous sentence for financial crime, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that supposed visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the purification of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo approved a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His intervention was intended to counter the spread of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of apparitions, weeping statues, and self-styled prophets.
The late Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
