A so-called mystic who drew many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for suspected deception.
Central Charges and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the statue was sending messages to her, will be tried together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are charged with orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making false forecasts of catastrophes to attract contributions from their Catholic followers.
Cardia drew many of individuals each month to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the supposed scheme collected a large sum in donations from the visitors, who believed their funds would go towards establishing a centre for sick children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of making untrue prophecies, including stating the figure warned her that the devil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the blood on the statue originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its regulations 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 Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Background and Related Incidents
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, bought the figure in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that supposed visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The authority announced that the claimed apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo authorized a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from sin. His intervention was aimed to combat the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of visions, weeping figures, and so-called prophets.
The former pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
