🔗 Share this article

A so-called mystic who attracted hundreds of pilgrims to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been sent to trial for alleged deception.

Central Accusations and Particulars

Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.

They are accused of orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of catastrophes to solicit donations from their Catholic supporters.

Cardia drew hundreds of individuals each month to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the supposed scam generated €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who believed their funds would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.

Additional Claims

Cardia is also accused of issuing untrue predictions, including stating the statue alerted her that the evil was planning calamities, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.

Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its regulations on paranormal occurrences as part of a crackdown 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,” said Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.

Background and Connected Incidents

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

News of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have shown himself to a woman 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The office announced that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.

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 damnation. His action was intended to combat the spread of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged assertions of visions, weeping figures, and self-styled seers.

The late pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.