A self-styled mystic who drew hundreds of pilgrims to a town near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for suspected deception.
Key Charges and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the figure was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are accused of staging fake visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of catastrophes to attract contributions from their Catholic followers.
Cardia drew hundreds of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the statue, 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 money would go towards establishing a centre for ill children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also accused of making false prophecies, including stating the figure 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.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a detective asserted the blood on the figure came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its regulations on paranormal occurrences as part of a crackdown 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,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Connected Incidents
Cardia, who has a previous sentence for financial crime, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have appeared to a woman 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The authority announced that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff authorized a decree last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from sin. His action was intended to combat the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged assertions of visions, weeping statues, and self-styled seers.
The former Pope Francis warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
