Italian ‘Mystic’ Confronts Fraud Trial Regarding Claims Madonna Statue Shed Bloody Tears
A self-styled mystic who drew hundreds of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been sent to trial for alleged deception.
Central Charges and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the figure was sending messages to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are charged with staging fake visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false forecasts of catastrophes to solicit donations from their religious supporters.
Cardia brought many of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the supposed scam collected a large sum in donations from the visitors, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of making untrue prophecies, including claiming the statue warned her that the devil was concocting calamities, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the figure came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on paranormal phenomena as part of a campaign on frauds 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,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Context and Related Incidents
The accused, who has a prior sentence for financial crime, purchased the figure in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the claimed apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff authorized a ruling last week directing 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 intervention was aimed to combat the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged assertions of apparitions, weeping statues, and so-called seers.
The late pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
