A self-styled mystic who drew hundreds of pilgrims to a community near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been sent to trial for suspected fraud.
Key Charges and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the figure was sending communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are accused of orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of catastrophes to solicit donations from their Catholic 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 makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over a number of years, the supposed scam collected a large sum in offerings from the visitors, who believed their funds would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also accused of making false prophecies, including stating the statue warned her that the devil was concocting disasters, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the substance on the figure came from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on supernatural occurrences as part of a campaign on frauds and hoaxes.
“As paradoxical as it may seem, she actually feels relief, believing this is an opportunity to reveal the truth of the events with transparency and to definitively put an end to all forms of speculation, misunderstanding and controversy,” stated her legal representative, the attorney.
Context and Connected Incidents
The accused, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office announced that the claimed visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff 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 damnation. His action was intended to counter the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of visions, weeping statues, and self-styled prophets.
The late pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
