A so-called mystic who drew many of devotees to a town near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud.
Key Charges and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the figure was sending communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of staging false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue forecasts of disasters to attract donations from their religious followers.
Cardia drew hundreds of individuals each month to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a hill. Over a number of years, the supposed scheme generated €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a facility for ill children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of making false predictions, including stating the figure alerted her that the devil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a detective asserted the blood on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on paranormal phenomena as part of a crackdown 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, the attorney.
Context and Related Events
The accused, who has a prior sentence for financial crime, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the French 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 office announced that the claimed apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff authorized a decree last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His action was aimed to counter the spread of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of apparitions, crying figures, and so-called seers.
The late Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
