A self-styled mystic who attracted many of devotees to a community near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for suspected deception.
Central Accusations and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the figure was transmitting messages to her, will be tried together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are accused of orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making false forecasts of catastrophes to attract donations from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia drew hundreds of individuals each month to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scam generated a large sum in donations from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a centre for ill children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also charged with making untrue predictions, including claiming the figure alerted her that the evil was planning calamities, 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 initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a campaign on scams and deceptions.
“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, the attorney.
Context and Connected Events
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that supposed visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the alleged apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff approved a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His action was aimed to combat the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened assertions of visions, weeping figures, and so-called seers.
The late pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.