Virgin Mary apparitions not always real says pope amid Trevignano case

(ANSA) - ROME, JUN 4 - Pope Francis said Sunday that apparitions of the Virgin Mary are "not always real" amid a furore over a supposedly 'blood-weeping' statue of the Madonna near Rome.
    "Don't look there," the Argentina pontiff told State broadcaster Rai when asked about apparitions of the Virgin Mary.
    "That is a instrument of Marian devotion that is not always real.
    "There are images of the Madonna that are real, but the Madonna has never attracted (attention) to herself.
    "I like to see her with her finger pointing up to Jesus.
    "When Marian devotion is too centred on itself, it is not good".
    A Catholic bishop on Thursday advised the faithful not to attend monthly meetings at the Lake Bracciano hillside town of Trevignano before a statue of the Madonna while it investigates claims by its owner that it weeps blood and that the Virgin Mary makes apparitions there.
    Civita Castellana Bishop Marco Salvi also told priests not to comment on the supposed supernatural events at Trevignano, where the statue is set in a glass case.
    The owner, self-styled soothsayer Gisella Cardia, holds meetings with hundreds of faithful before the statue on the third day of each month.
    Last month she said she said was undeterred by probe stemming from a complain to police and an order to demolish the statue's case.
    "I won't budge an inch because I'm in the house of God and I have the Madonna on my side," Cardia said.
    As well as pointing out the 'apparitions', Cardia tells the assembled crowd what the Virgin is telling her, usually messages of hope.
    Cardia, a 53-year-old who moved to Trevignano after receiving a two-year suspended sentence for bankruptcy when her ceramics firm went bust in Sicily in 2013, has been hosting the apparition events for the last five years.
    The former businesswoman, who until a few years ago went by her birth name, Maria Giuseppa Scarpulla, said she bought the statue at the Bosnian apparition shrine of Medjugorje a few years ago.
    (ANSA).