“Don’t look there,” the Pope said in an interview with “Rai 1” when asked about the apparitions of the Virgin Mary. “There are pictures of Madonna that are real, but Madonna has never focused [uzmanību] myself,” he said. “I like to see her with her finger pointing to Jesus. If Marian devotion is too self-centered, it’s not good. Both in the faith and in the people who carry it forward.”
The interview was broadcast days after residents of Trevignano called on Francis to intervene against Maria Giuseppe Scarpulla, who is described as a “saint” and a “clairvoyant”.
For five years, she has organized monthly ceremonies in a park overlooking Lake Bracciano, where a statue of the Virgin Mary is housed in a glass case.
The statue was purchased by Skarpulla, known to her followers as Gisella Cardia, at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Medjugorje, Bosnia. Back in Italy, she claimed Madonna appeared, crying tears of blood and gave her news.
Local bishop Marco Salvi last week urged pilgrims to stop gathering at the site while his diocese investigates the apparitions surrounding the statue. Many people prayed in front of the statue seeking cures for serious illnesses.
Scarpulla has been under investigation after a private investigator claimed the bloodstains on the statue came from a pig, and after some of her followers claimed they had been defrauded.
Scarpulla, who had a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, set up a foundation through which she collected donations that she said would go toward a center for sick children. A man told La Repubblica that he and his wife donated 123,000 euros to her foundation. “We were both sick, we trusted her, it was a big mistake,” he said.
2023-06-04 17:41:15
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