A self-styled mystic who attracted hundreds of devotees to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected deception.
Central Charges and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was sending communications to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are accused of staging fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false predictions of catastrophes to attract contributions from their Catholic followers.
Cardia drew many of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a hill. Over a number of years, the alleged scheme collected €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also accused of issuing false prophecies, including stating the figure alerted her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate 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 claimed the blood on the figure came from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on paranormal occurrences 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,” stated her legal representative, the attorney.
Background and Related Events
The accused, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, bought the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the claimed apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff authorized a decree last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His action was intended to combat the proliferation of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, crying figures, and so-called seers.
The late pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
