Italian ‘Mystic’ Faces Deception Trial Over Claims Virgin Mary Figure Wept Blood
A self-styled mystic who attracted many of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected deception.
Central Charges and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the figure was transmitting messages to her, will be tried together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are accused of orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of disasters to solicit contributions from their religious followers.
Cardia drew hundreds of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over a number of years, the supposed scam generated €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards setting up a centre for ill children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with issuing untrue prophecies, including claiming the figure warned her that the devil was planning calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on paranormal occurrences as part of a campaign on scams and hoaxes.
“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, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Related Incidents
The accused, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the figure 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 European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the purification of sin be built in the town. The authority announced that the alleged visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo approved a ruling last week directing Catholics not to refer to 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 spread of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, crying figures, and self-styled prophets.
The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
