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

Central Accusations and Details

Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.

They are charged with staging fake visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false forecasts of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their religious supporters.

Cardia brought many of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scam collected €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who believed their funds would go towards setting up a centre for ill children.

Additional Claims

Cardia is also charged with making untrue predictions, including claiming the statue warned her that the devil was concocting disasters, 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 inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on paranormal occurrences as part of a crackdown 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,” stated her legal representative, the attorney.

Context and Related Events

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

Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the alleged apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.

Pope Leo approved a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from sin. His intervention was intended to counter the spread of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, weeping figures, and so-called seers.

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