A so-called mystic who attracted many of devotees to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.
Central Accusations and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are accused of orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue forecasts of disasters to solicit donations from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia brought many of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scheme generated a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their funds would go towards establishing a centre for ill children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making false predictions, including stating the figure alerted 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 coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the blood on the figure came from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on paranormal occurrences as part of a campaign on scams and hoaxes.
“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,” said Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Background and Connected Events
Cardia, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated 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 asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the claimed apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff authorized a ruling last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from sin. His intervention was aimed to counter the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, crying figures, and self-styled seers.
The late pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.