Self-proclaimed ‘Mystic’ Confronts Fraud Trial Over Claims Madonna Figure Wept Bloody Tears
A self-styled mystic who attracted hundreds of pilgrims to a town near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud.
Central Accusations and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of staging fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false forecasts of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their religious supporters.
Cardia brought many of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over a number of years, the supposed scam collected a large sum in donations from the visitors, who believed their funds would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also accused of issuing false prophecies, including stating the statue warned her that the devil was planning calamities, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a detective claimed the substance on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its rules 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 Related Incidents
The accused, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the figure in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that supposed visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the alleged visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff approved 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 save the world from sin. His action was intended to counter the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened claims of visions, weeping figures, and so-called prophets.
The former pope cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
