Self-proclaimed ‘Mystic’ Faces Fraud Trial Regarding Claims Madonna Figure Shed Bloody Tears
A so-called mystic who attracted hundreds 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 suspected deception.
Central Charges and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are accused of staging false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of catastrophes to attract donations from their Catholic followers.
Cardia drew many of individuals each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scheme generated €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a centre for sick children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also accused of issuing false predictions, including claiming the figure alerted her that the devil was concocting disasters, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its rules on supernatural phenomena as part of a campaign on scams 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,” said her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Connected Incidents
The accused, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have appeared to a woman 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The authority announced that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff approved a decree last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from sin. His intervention was aimed to combat the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of apparitions, weeping statues, and so-called prophets.
The former Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
