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A so-called mystic who attracted hundreds of devotees to a town near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been sent to trial for suspected deception.

Central Accusations and Details

Gisella Cardia, who also stated the figure was sending communications to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.

They are accused of orchestrating fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false forecasts of disasters to solicit contributions from their Catholic supporters.

Cardia drew many of individuals monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been placed in a temporary sanctuary on a elevation. Over several years, the alleged scam collected €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a centre for ill children.

Further Allegations

Cardia is also accused of making false predictions, including stating the figure warned her that the evil 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 investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the substance on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its regulations on paranormal phenomena as part of a crackdown on scams and hoaxes.

“Despite the irony, she finds comfort, viewing this as a chance to clarify the facts openly and conclusively stop all rumors, confusion, and disputes,” said Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.

Context and Related Incidents

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

Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the purification of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the claimed visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.

The pontiff approved a ruling last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His intervention was intended to combat the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of visions, crying statues, and self-styled seers.

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