Italian ‘Mystic’ Confronts Deception Trial Over Allegations Virgin Mary Figure Shed Blood
A self-styled visionary who drew 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 Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the statue was sending communications to her, will be prosecuted along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are charged with orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue predictions of catastrophes to attract contributions from their religious supporters.
Cardia brought hundreds of individuals each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the supposed scam generated a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their funds would go towards establishing a centre for ill children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also accused of issuing false prophecies, including stating the statue alerted her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on supernatural phenomena as part of a crackdown on scams 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,” said her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Related Events
The accused, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that supposed visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the alleged visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo approved a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His intervention was aimed to combat the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged assertions of visions, weeping figures, and self-styled seers.
The former pope cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
