A self-styled mystic who drew many of pilgrims to a community 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 statue was transmitting messages to her, will be tried 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 predictions of disasters to attract donations from their Catholic followers.
Cardia brought many of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scheme generated a large sum in donations from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards establishing a facility for ill children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also charged with making untrue prophecies, including claiming the statue warned her that the evil was planning calamities, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the substance on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on paranormal occurrences as part of a campaign on frauds 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.
Context and Related Incidents
The accused, who has a previous conviction for financial crime, purchased the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have appeared to a woman 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be constructed 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 call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His intervention was intended to combat the spread of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, weeping statues, and self-styled prophets.
The former Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
