A so-called mystic who attracted many of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud.
Central Charges and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the figure was transmitting messages to her, will be tried along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and making false forecasts of disasters to attract donations from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia brought hundreds of people each month to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the alleged scam collected a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also accused of issuing untrue prophecies, including claiming the statue warned her that the devil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on paranormal occurrences as part of a crackdown on frauds 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, the attorney.
Background and Related Events
The accused, who has a previous sentence for financial crime, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News 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 not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the purification of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the claimed apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
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 damnation. His intervention was intended to counter the spread of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of apparitions, crying figures, and so-called prophets.
The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
