A self-styled mystic who attracted many of devotees to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected deception.
Key Charges and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the figure was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are accused of orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false forecasts of disasters to solicit donations from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia drew hundreds of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been placed in a makeshift shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the alleged scheme collected €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards establishing a centre for sick children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also charged with issuing untrue prophecies, including stating the figure warned her that the devil was concocting 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 opened an investigation in 2023 after a detective asserted the substance on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its rules on paranormal occurrences 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 her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Connected Incidents
Cardia, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.
Reports 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 not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have shown himself to a woman 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be built in the town. The office announced that the claimed visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff approved a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His action was aimed to counter the spread of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged claims of visions, weeping figures, and so-called seers.
The late pope cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
