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A so-called mystic who attracted many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.

Key Accusations and Particulars

Gisella Cardia, who also stated the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be tried along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.

They are accused of orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of catastrophes to attract donations from their religious supporters.

Cardia drew many of people each month to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the alleged scam collected a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their funds would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.

Additional Claims

Cardia is also charged with making false predictions, including stating the statue alerted her that the devil was concocting calamities, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.

Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the statue originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on supernatural occurrences as part of a campaign on scams and deceptions.

“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,” said Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.

Context and Connected Incidents

Cardia, who has a previous sentence for financial crime, bought the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that alleged apparitions 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 “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the alleged visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.

The pontiff approved a decree last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His action was intended to combat the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of visions, weeping statues, and self-styled seers.

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