A self-styled mystic who drew many of pilgrims to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for suspected deception.
Central Charges and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be tried together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are charged with orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and making false forecasts of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their Catholic followers.
Cardia brought many of people monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary sanctuary on a hill. Over a number of years, the alleged scheme collected €365,000 in offerings from the visitors, who believed their funds would go towards setting up a facility for ill children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also charged with making false prophecies, including claiming the figure alerted her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the substance on the figure came from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a campaign on frauds 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,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Context and Related Events
Cardia, who has a previous conviction for financial crime, purchased the figure in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared 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 Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority announced that the claimed apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo authorized 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 aimed to combat the spread of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, weeping figures, and so-called prophets.
The late pope cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
