Self-proclaimed ‘Mystic’ Faces Fraud Trial Regarding Claims Virgin Mary Figure Shed Blood
A self-styled mystic who attracted many of pilgrims to a town near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.
Central Charges and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was sending communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are charged with staging fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making false forecasts of disasters to attract contributions from their religious supporters.
Cardia brought many of people monthly to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scheme collected a large sum in offerings from the visitors, who believed their money would go towards setting up a facility for ill children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also accused of making untrue prophecies, including claiming the statue warned her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors 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 declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on supernatural occurrences 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 Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Context and Related Events
Cardia, who has a previous conviction for financial crime, bought the figure in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that supposed visions 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 asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office announced that the claimed apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo authorized a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His intervention was intended to counter the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, crying statues, and so-called prophets.
The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
