A self-styled mystic who drew many of pilgrims to a town near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been sent to trial for alleged deception.
Central Charges and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the statue was transmitting communications to her, will be tried together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are accused of orchestrating fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their religious supporters.
Cardia drew hundreds of individuals monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the alleged scam generated a large sum in donations from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards setting up a centre for ill children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of making untrue prophecies, including stating the statue warned her that the devil was concocting disasters, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its regulations on supernatural occurrences as part of a campaign on frauds 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,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Connected Incidents
Cardia, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the purification of sin be built in the town. The office announced that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo authorized a decree last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His action was aimed to counter the spread of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of visions, weeping figures, and so-called prophets.
The former Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
