A self-styled mystic who attracted hundreds of pilgrims to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure 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 stated the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are accused of staging false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue forecasts of catastrophes to solicit donations from their religious supporters.
Cardia brought many of people monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scheme generated a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a centre for sick children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also accused of making false predictions, including claiming the statue warned her that the devil was concocting calamities, 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 inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its rules on paranormal occurrences as part of a campaign 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.
Context and Connected Events
The accused, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office 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 Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the purification of sin be built in the town. The office said that the claimed 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 intervention was intended to counter the proliferation of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged assertions of apparitions, crying statues, and self-styled prophets.
The former Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
