A so-called mystic who drew many of pilgrims to a town near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.
Key Charges and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are accused of orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making false forecasts of disasters to solicit donations from their Catholic followers.
Cardia brought many of people monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over a number of years, the supposed scheme collected a large sum in offerings from the visitors, who believed their funds would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also charged with making untrue prophecies, including stating the figure alerted her that the devil was concocting disasters, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a detective asserted the blood on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on paranormal occurrences as part of a campaign on scams and deceptions.
“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 Events
The accused, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, bought the figure in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that supposed visions of Jesus in the French 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 ensure the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the claimed apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff authorized a decree 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 intervention was aimed to counter the spread of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged assertions of apparitions, crying figures, and so-called seers.
The late pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
