Self-proclaimed ‘Mystic’ Faces Fraud Court Case Over Allegations Madonna Statue Wept Bloody Tears
A self-styled mystic who drew hundreds of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected fraud.
Key Accusations and Particulars
Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are charged with staging false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of catastrophes to attract donations from their Catholic followers.
Cardia drew many of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scheme collected a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their funds would go towards establishing a centre for ill children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also accused of making untrue predictions, including claiming the statue alerted her that the devil was planning calamities, for example an earthquake 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 asserted the blood on the statue originated from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a crackdown on frauds and deceptions.
“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, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Related Events
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, 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 not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the purification of sin be built in the town. The authority announced that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff authorized a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His intervention was intended to combat the spread of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, weeping figures, and so-called prophets.
The late Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
