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A self-styled mystic who attracted many of devotees to a community near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected fraud.

Key Charges and Particulars

Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the figure was sending messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.

They are accused of staging fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their Catholic followers.

Cardia drew many of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over a number of years, the supposed scam collected €365,000 in offerings from the visitors, who believed their money would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.

Further Allegations

Cardia is also charged with issuing untrue prophecies, including claiming the statue warned her that the evil was planning calamities, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.

Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the substance on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its regulations on paranormal 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, the attorney.

Background and Connected Incidents

Cardia, who has a prior sentence for financial crime, bought the figure in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Međugorje.

News of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that supposed 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 purification of sin be built in the town. The office said that the alleged apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.

The pontiff authorized a decree last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His action was aimed to counter the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of apparitions, crying figures, and so-called prophets.

The late pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.