Italian ‘Mystic’ Confronts Fraud Trial Over Allegations Madonna Figure Shed Bloody Tears
A so-called mystic who drew many of devotees to a community near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for alleged deception.
Key Charges and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are accused of staging false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of disasters to solicit contributions from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia drew hundreds of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift shrine on a hill. Over several years, the supposed scheme collected €365,000 in donations from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a centre for ill children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also accused of issuing false predictions, including claiming the figure warned her that the evil was concocting disasters, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the statue came from a animal. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its regulations on paranormal phenomena as part of a crackdown on frauds and hoaxes.
“Despite the irony, she finds comfort, viewing this as a chance to clarify the facts openly and conclusively stop all rumors, confusion, and disputes,” stated her legal representative, the attorney.
Context and Related Events
Cardia, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged visions of Jesus in the French 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 “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the claimed apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff approved a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His intervention was aimed to combat the spread of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, crying statues, and self-styled prophets.
The former pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
