Sora, Italy, Jun 7, 2016 / 12:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- An Italian sect centered on the worship of an alleged apparition of the Child Jesus which is gathered around the son-in-law of the seer has been found guilty of schism and received a ‘latae sententiae’ excommunication.
The news was communicated in a June 5 statement from the Diocese of Sora-Cassino-Aquino-Pontecorvo, where the sect is based.
The group, the Universal Christian Church of the New Jerusalem, is based in Gallinaro, a town of central Italy located 15 miles southeast of Sora. There, Giuseppina Norcia reportedly saw an apparition of the child Jesus in 1947. This was followed by subsequent apparitions in 1974, and her family built a chapel on the site the following year.
The June 5 statement from the Sora diocese stated that “the group called the ‘Child Jesus of Gallinaro’ or ‘New Jerusalem’ is committed to spreading false religious doctrines and teachings that distort the Bible and are outside the truth of the sacred text.”
The statement also notes that “the doctrinal position of the group is clearly against the Catholic faith, as it obliges the faithful not to receive sacraments, to disapprove of the Pope’s teaching and authority, not to entertain relations with priests and their parish communities, and not to observe ecclesiastical discipline.”
The Sora diocese stated that the group “established the self-styled ‘Universal Christian Church of the New Jerusalem'” and stressed that “all the faithful of the diocese must be informed” of the consequences of “this very grave abuse, which underwent an examination by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.”
The abuse constitutes schism, a crime whose penalty is automatic, or latae sententiae, excommunication.
“In order to safeguard the integrity of faith, ecclesial communion, and the pastoral action of the Church for the people of God”, the diocese stated that the initiatives of the “self-styled new Jerusalem” are “completely against Catholic doctrine, and have nothing to do with the grace of faith and salvation” that “Christ entrusted to the Church founded on the rock of the apostle Peter.”
The diocese also stated that “all the faithful who this ‘self-styled Church’ are punished with latae sententiae excommunication for the canonical crime of schism.”
The group established itself as the “Universal Christian Church of the New Jerusalem” in October 2015, and it was with this act of schism that its members will have excommunicated themselves.
The sect was founded by Samuele Morcia, the son-in-law of the seer Giuseppina Norcia. Morcia took over the prayer groups dedicated to the “apparition” after Norcia's 1989 death, and turned them into a sect based on a cult of personality. He claimed that Norcia had transferred to him her capacity to receive messages and prophecies from Christ.
The group holds that Gallinaro is the “New Jerusalem,” and it has attracted tens of thousands of worshippers from across Italy. Many prayer groups have spread dedicated to the worship of the supposed apparition of the child Jesus.
Morcia promoted the building of a chapel in the shape of an ark, and launched a non-profit organization, the Casa Serena del Bambin Gesù, to raise the necessary funds.
Its balance sheets have never been published, though according to Italian tax data it collected 305,000 Euros ($346,000) between 2006 and 2012. Some 2,500 Italian taxpayers have opted to give to the non-profit.
The Gallinaro group found support from Bishop Carlo Minchiatti, who was Sora's bishop from 1971 to 1982. But by 1992 the diocese had begun warning the faithful against Gallinaro.
Another statement from the Sora diocese noted that “no approval from the competent ecclesiastical authority” had been given to the worship of Gallinaro.
The document also stated that “facts presented as extraordinary or supernatural cannot be considered so, given their origin, nature and content.” The vicars of the diocese also stressed that “the phenomenon is watched” because it can open to “a certain religious fanaticism and contamination contrasting with Catholic teaching.”
They added that the designation of Gallinaro as “the New Jerusalem” is “totally unacceptable and pastorally concerning, because of its millenarian content.”
The statement hampered the gathering of faithful from around the diocese, yet Gallinaro-worship continued to develop in neighboring dioceses.
For example, a December 2015 statement from the Diocese of Salerno-Campagna-Acerno, more than 100 miles away, warned its faithful that the group was “incompatible with the Catholic faith.”
Article Archive
Schismatic sect in Italy incurs excommunication
Related Articles • More Articles
Reporter Catherine Hadro speaks with Sister Mary Gianna of the Disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ and Frank DeAngelis on "EWTN News In Depth" on April 19, 2024. Sister Mary Gianna, also known as Jenica Thornby, was a sophomore at Columbine High School and DeAngelis was principal on April 20, 1999, when two gunmen killed 12 students and one teacher before turning their guns on themselves. / Credit: "EWTN News In Depth" screen shotsCNA Staff, Apr 22, 2024 / 15:30 pm (CNA).Throughout her freshman and sophomore years at Columbine High School, Jenica Thornby went to the library every single day."Not one day went by that I did not go to the library," Thornby recently told "EWTN News In Depth" reporter Catherine Hadro. "Except one day."That day was April 20, 1999. "I was 16 years old, and I was sitting in my art class when all of a sudden I had this overwhelming urge to leave school," she recalled. "I just over [and over] in my head kept repeating, 'There's no way I'm staying her...
Left to right: Dr. John Bruchalski, a former abortionist and IVF provider, Emma Waters, a senior research associate at the Heritage Foundation, Andrew Kubick, a bioethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center and the Religious Freedom Institute, and Sister Deirdre Byrne, superior of the D.C. Little Workers of the Sacred Hearts, discuss the "eugenic" dangers of in vitro fertilization at a panel event at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., April 18, 2024. / Credit: Photo by Peter Pinedo/CNAWashington D.C., Apr 22, 2024 / 16:00 pm (CNA).A former abortionist and several pro-life ethicists are urging lawmakers to protect children and parents from the in vitro fertilization (IVF) industry, which they say operates on "eugenic" principles. IVF is a fertility treatment that works by inducing hyper-ovulation during a woman's cycle to harvest her eggs and then fuse them with sperm to conceive a child outside the womb. The Catholic Church is opposed t...
Bishop Tesfasellassie Medhin of the Catholic Eparchy of Adigrat in Ethiopia, which covers the Tigray region. / Credit: CBCEACI Africa, Apr 22, 2024 / 16:30 pm (CNA).The bishop of Ethiopia's Catholic Eparchy of Adigrat, which covers the Tigray region, said he has witnessed firsthand the "unspeakable suffering" and death of the people of God in the embattled region of the Horn of Africa nation.In a statement that ACI Africa, CNA's news partner in Africa, obtained April 19, Bishop Tesfasellassie Medhin pleaded for the implementation of the Nov. 2, 2022, peace agreement in Pretoria, South Africa, in which the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) pledged to "permanently silence the guns and end the two years of conflict in northern Ethiopia.""I am writing as a religious leader with deep concern and feeling for the pain of tens of millions of our population in the country, especially the children, elders, and women of Tigray," Medhin said. He pain...