🔗 Share this article

A so-called mystic who attracted many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for alleged deception.

Central Accusations and Details

Gisella Cardia, who also stated the figure was sending communications to her, will be tried along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.

They are accused of orchestrating fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false forecasts of disasters to solicit donations from their religious supporters.

Cardia brought many of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scheme collected €365,000 in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a facility for ill children.

Additional Allegations

Cardia is also charged with issuing false predictions, including stating the figure alerted her that the evil was concocting disasters, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.

Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its rules on supernatural occurrences as part of a crackdown on frauds 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,” said Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.

Context and Related Incidents

Cardia, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that supposed visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The office said that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.

Pope Leo authorized a ruling last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His intervention was aimed to counter the spread of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, weeping figures, and self-styled seers.

The former Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.