Italian ‘Mystic’ Faces Fraud Court Case Over Allegations Madonna Figure Shed Bloody Tears

A self-styled mystic who drew many 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 fraud.

Central Accusations and Details

Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.

They are accused of staging false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue forecasts of catastrophes to attract contributions from their Catholic supporters.

Cardia brought many of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the alleged scheme generated €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.

Additional Allegations

Cardia is also accused of issuing false predictions, including stating the statue alerted her that the devil was planning disasters, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.

Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective asserted the substance on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on paranormal occurrences as part of a crackdown 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.

Context and Connected Incidents

Cardia, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

News of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that supposed visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to a woman 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the purification of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the claimed apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.

Pope Leo authorized a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from sin. His intervention was aimed to combat the proliferation of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of visions, crying statues, and so-called seers.

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