Italian ‘Mystic’ Faces Fraud Court Case Over Claims Virgin Mary Statue Wept Blood
A self-styled mystic who drew many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been sent to trial for suspected deception.
Central Accusations and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the figure was sending messages to her, will be tried along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of disasters to solicit contributions from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia drew hundreds of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scheme generated €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards setting up a facility for ill children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also charged with making untrue predictions, including stating the figure warned her that the devil was concocting calamities, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the port 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 deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a crackdown on scams and deceptions.
“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.
Background and Connected Events
Cardia, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the figure in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself 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 “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo authorized a ruling last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His action was aimed to counter the spread of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged assertions of apparitions, crying statues, and so-called seers.
The former pope cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
