A self-styled mystic who drew many of devotees to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been sent to trial for alleged fraud.
Central Charges and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the statue was sending communications to her, will be prosecuted along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are charged with orchestrating fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue forecasts of disasters to attract donations from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia brought hundreds of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over a number of years, the supposed scheme generated €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a centre for ill children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also charged with making untrue prophecies, including claiming the figure warned her that the devil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on paranormal phenomena as part of a campaign on frauds and deceptions.
“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.
Context and Connected Events
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to a woman 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office announced that the alleged visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo authorized a ruling last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His intervention was aimed to combat the proliferation of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened claims of visions, crying figures, and so-called seers.
The former pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
