A self-styled Italian mystic, who attracted hundreds of pilgrims by claiming a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood, has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.
Gisella Cardia and her husband, Gianni Cardia, are accused of orchestrating an elaborate scheme that generated an estimated €365,000 (£322,000) in donations from devout followers over several years.
The Allegations and the Shrine
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia allege that the couple staged fake apparitions and delivered false prophecies of catastrophe to solicit funds. Cardia claimed the statue, placed in a makeshift shrine on a hill in the lakeside town of Trevignano Romano near Rome, was transmitting messages to her.
Pilgrims were told their donations would fund a centre for sick children. However, the investigation was launched in 2023 after a private investigator alleged the 'blood' on the statue originated from a pig.
Cardia also made several dramatic predictions, allegedly from the statue, warning that the devil was planning disasters, including an earthquake that would destroy Rome and a communist takeover of the Catholic Church.
Church Response and Wider Crackdown
The Catholic Church subsequently declared Cardia a fraud. This case coincides with a broader Vatican initiative to tighten regulations concerning claims of supernatural phenomena.
In a related move, the Vatican's doctrinal office recently declared that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were definitively not of supernatural origin.
Furthermore, Pope Francis has previously cautioned that not all Marian apparitions are real. The late Pope also approved a decree instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as "co-redeemer", an intervention aimed at countering exaggerated worship often spread on social media.
Path to Trial and Defence
Cardia, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 from Međugorje, a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Her lawyer, Solange Marchingoli, told the Ansa news agency that her client welcomes the trial "with serenity", seeing it as an opportunity to reveal the truth and end speculation. The trial is scheduled to begin in April next year.
