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A so-called mystic who drew hundreds of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for alleged fraud.

Central Charges and Particulars

Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was sending communications to her, will be tried along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.

They are accused of orchestrating fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false predictions of disasters to attract contributions from their Catholic followers.

Cardia brought hundreds of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the supposed scam collected a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.

Further Allegations

Cardia is also accused of issuing false predictions, including claiming the statue alerted her that the devil was planning calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.

Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the blood on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on supernatural phenomena as part of a campaign on frauds 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 Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.

Background and Related Incidents

Cardia, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

News of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to a woman 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” 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”.

Pope Leo authorized a decree last week directing 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 counter the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, weeping statues, and self-styled prophets.

The late Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.