A self-styled mystic who attracted many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected fraud.
Central Accusations and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was sending messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are accused of orchestrating fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of catastrophes to attract donations from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia drew hundreds of people each month to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scam generated a large sum in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a centre for ill children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of making false prophecies, including claiming the statue alerted her that the evil 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 initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective asserted the substance on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on supernatural occurrences as part of a crackdown 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,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Context and Related Incidents
The accused, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
Reports 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 alleged to have shown himself to a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff approved a decree last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His action was intended to combat the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, weeping figures, and so-called prophets.
The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
