A self-styled mystic who attracted hundreds of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud.
Key Charges and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are accused of orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of catastrophes to solicit donations from their religious followers.
Cardia brought many of individuals monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scheme generated €365,000 in offerings from the visitors, who believed their funds would go towards setting up a facility for ill children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also charged with issuing untrue prophecies, including stating the figure alerted her that the evil was planning calamities, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on paranormal phenomena as part of a campaign on scams 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 her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Connected Incidents
The accused, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the figure in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to a woman 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The authority announced that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo approved a ruling last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His action was intended to counter the spread of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened claims of apparitions, crying statues, and so-called prophets.
The former pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
