A so-called mystic who drew many of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.
Central Accusations and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the statue was sending messages to her, will be prosecuted together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of staging fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of disasters to solicit contributions from their religious followers.
Cardia drew hundreds of people monthly to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scam generated €365,000 in donations from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a facility for ill children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also accused of making false predictions, including claiming the statue warned her that the devil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a detective asserted the substance on the statue originated from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently 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,” said Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Background and Related Incidents
The accused, who has a prior sentence for financial crime, bought the figure in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated 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 a woman 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be built in the town. The office announced that the alleged visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo approved 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 sin. His action was intended to combat the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of visions, crying statues, and so-called seers.
The former Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
