A self-styled mystic who drew many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been sent to trial for suspected deception.
Central Accusations and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was sending messages to her, will be prosecuted together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are accused of staging false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of catastrophes to solicit donations from their religious supporters.
Cardia drew many of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over a number of years, the alleged scam generated €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also accused of issuing untrue prophecies, including stating the figure warned her that the devil was concocting disasters, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on supernatural occurrences 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,” said Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Background and Related Incidents
Cardia, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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 deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to a woman 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the claimed apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff authorized a decree last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His intervention was aimed to combat the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged claims of visions, crying statues, and so-called seers.
The late pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
