A so-called mystic who drew many of pilgrims to a town near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected deception.
Key Charges and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are charged with staging fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of catastrophes to attract contributions from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia drew many of people each month to a lakeside town, a lakeside 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 a large sum in donations from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a facility for ill children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making false prophecies, including claiming the statue warned her that the evil was planning calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the figure came from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its rules 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,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Related Events
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, purchased the statue in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that alleged visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the claimed apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo approved a decree last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His intervention was intended to combat the spread of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, crying figures, and so-called seers.
The former pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
