A so-called mystic who attracted hundreds of devotees to a town near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been sent to 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 the spring the coming year.
They are accused of staging fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of catastrophes to attract contributions from their Catholic followers.
Cardia drew many of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scheme generated €365,000 in donations from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also charged with making false predictions, including claiming the statue alerted her that the devil was concocting disasters, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the substance on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its regulations on paranormal occurrences 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 her legal representative, the attorney.
Background and Connected Events
The accused, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought the figure in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The office announced that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo authorized a decree last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His intervention was aimed to counter the proliferation of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, crying figures, and self-styled seers.
The late pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
