A self-styled mystic who drew many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.
Central Charges and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are charged with staging fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false predictions of catastrophes to attract donations from their religious followers.
Cardia drew hundreds of individuals monthly 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 generated a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards establishing a centre for ill children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making false predictions, including claiming the figure warned her that the devil was planning 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 originated from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its regulations on supernatural occurrences as part of a campaign 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,” said Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Related Events
Cardia, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, 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 stated that supposed visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the alleged visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo approved a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His action was intended to combat the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened assertions of visions, crying figures, and self-styled seers.
The former pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
