Italian ‘Mystic’ Confronts Fraud Trial Over Claims Madonna Statue Shed Bloody Tears
A so-called visionary who drew hundreds of pilgrims to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been sent to trial for suspected deception.
Key Charges and Details
Gisella Cardia, who also stated the statue was sending messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false predictions of disasters to solicit donations from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia brought many of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over a number of years, the supposed scheme generated €365,000 in donations from the visitors, who believed their money would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also charged with issuing untrue predictions, including stating the statue warned 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 port city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective asserted the blood on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its regulations on supernatural occurrences as part of a campaign on scams 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 her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Connected Incidents
The accused, who has a previous conviction for financial crime, purchased the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that supposed visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the alleged apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff approved a decree 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 intended to combat the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, weeping figures, and so-called prophets.
The former pope cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
