A so-called mystic who drew many of pilgrims to a town near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been sent to trial for suspected fraud.
Central Accusations and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was sending messages to her, will be tried together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are charged with staging fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of disasters to solicit donations from their religious followers.
Cardia drew hundreds of people monthly to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over several years, the supposed scam collected €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards establishing a centre for sick children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also charged with making false predictions, including claiming the statue alerted her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on paranormal phenomena as part of a campaign 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, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Connected Events
The accused, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff approved a decree last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His action was aimed to counter the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, crying statues, and self-styled prophets.
The late Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
