Not only churchmen, but notables from the world of politics and entertainment, beat their way to Padre Pio's friary door. Aldo Moro, for many years head of the Italian government, made frequent trips to see the "Light of the Gargano," as did many other Italian politicians. King Alfonso XIII of Spain, Queen Maria Jose of Italy, and Francisco Franco, the longtime Spanish leader, were known to have asked his advice. (C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.14)
One thing is certain: Padre Pio cannot be dismissed lightly. There are basically only four conclusions that may be drawn concerning the Capuchin priest and his Ministry:
first, one may conclude that Padre Pio was one of the Greatest frauds of history, a showman, perhaps in league with Satan, a magician capable of humbugging the public to a degree imagined even by P.T. Barnum.
Second, one may conclude that Padre Pio was in large measure a product of the superstitious imaginations of an ignorant and gullible peasantry who read into the life of a simple, holy priest what they wanted to see, building around him a cult of mindless self-delusion.
Third, one may conclude that Padre Pio was a madman, a pathetic creature, hysterical and possibly schizophranic, who remained outside the mental institution by his clever ability to convince thousands of people that his delusions were reality.
If none of these three scenarios be true, then one must conclude that Padre Pio of Pietrelcina was one of the most significant figures in Christian history, a man of prophetic and apostolic stature, who, through great personal holiness and enlightened wisdom and through spiritual gifts inexplicable by science, tended to confirm the truth of the Gospels and the veracity of historical Christianity to an indifferent and unbelieving age; a man capable of conveying to an extraordinary extent a sense of God's love and care; and evangelist who never conducted a crusade, and who, without traveling more than a few miles from his friary in fifty years, yet seemed capable of transforming lives to a degree unimagined by the most successful evangelical preachers. (C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.18)
In Pietrelcina, as in most parts of the south, the vast majority of the populace was illiterate and so isolated that many peasants still did not know that they were citizens of a united Italy. (C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.21)
She and Gra seem to have been affectionate parents who spared the rod and relied upon the power of persuasion. Padre Pio remembered scoldings but never spankings. (C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.26)
Even so, like all children, there were times when he proved exasperating. Grazio Forgione recalled that little Franci passed through a spell when he kept the whole house awake by crying all night long. As an adult, when his father mentioned this episode, Padre Pio said that he cried because "a lot of monsters would come up close to me." One night, Tata was so exasperated by the child's continuous crying that he leaped up from his bed, seized the toddler, and shook him screaming, "The Good Lord must have sent a little devil into my house instead of a baby." To his horror, Gra lost his grip and Franci fell with a thump to the brick floor. Beppa, hysterical, gathered the tot, now shrieking louder than ever, into her arm, yelling at her husband, "What are you trying to do? Kill my child?" The crying episodes soon passed, but in later years, at least one witness recounted that Padre Pio had, looking back on that occurrence, concluded, "The devil was tormenting me." ..... Pietrelcina offered but three years of free schooling in the 1890s. .... His first teacher was Cosimo Scoccs, a fourteen-year-old boy from the next farm. ..... ... Tata and Mammella met with eighty percent sucess in their attempt to follow the maxim of Solomon: "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." (Proverbs 22:6) (C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.29-31)
"Why don't you cure him? Well, keep him, he's yours!" With that she threw the child at the statue. He hit the image, bounced off, and crashed to the floor. Then, to everyone's stupefaction, the child, who had never walked or talked before, got up and ran to his mother, crying, in a clear and normal voice, "Mother! Mother!" .... .... as a grown man, he told his friend Padre Agostino that from early childhood he had seen and spoken to Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and his guardian angel, and it never occurred to him that this was something unusual. "Don't you see the Madonna?" he asked his friend. When Agostino denied this, Francisco shrugged his shoulders and said, "Surely, your saying that out of humility." (C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.33)
Don Angelo brooked no nonsense. Whenever a student got a lesson wrong, he had to take it home and copy it over several times by the next morning. Unruly children were made to hold out their hands to receive the whack of a short ruler on the open palm. If that did not work, Caccavo did not hesitate to crack the recalcitrant child on the head or put him "in jail," that is, make him kneel in front of the class, facing the blackboard. But the boys and girls learned, so parents never objected to Don Angelo's methods. Francesco himself, on at least one occasion felt Don Angelo's wrath, albeit undeservedly. Several of the boys drafted a passionate love letter, signed Francesco's name, and delivered it to one of the girls, who handed it over to Don Angelo. He exploded and called Francesco to the front of the room. In front of the class, he began to beat the boy with his fists. The poor child tried to take cover under the enraged teacher's desk. Hearing the commotion and knowing her husband's violent temper, Signora Caccavo hurried downstairs, interposed herself between her husband and the child, and saved him from serious injury. When Don Angelo learned that the not was a forgery, he was horrified. He regretted the beating for the rest of his life. As Padre Pio later said, "All his remorse could not take away the black and blue marks that I carried about for days." (C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.37)
Later, when asked whether he ever thought of revenge after learning the full story, Padre Pio told his friend Padre Agostino, "On the contrary. I prayed for them and I am still praying for them." Yet, he conceded, "At times I did mention to God, 'My Lord, if it is necessary to give him a whipping or two to convert them, please do it, as long as their souls are saved in the end.'" (C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.39)
Religious wore tonsures in token of the fact that they were now laves of Christ. (C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.47)
Strict obedience to superiors was considered an essential trait for anyone aspiring to the highest state of spirituality. It was part of giving up one's will, dying to oneself. The Capuchin was at all times expected to try to learn and carry out as diligently as possible the will and desire of his superiors. "Obedience is everything to me," Padre Pio wrote later in life. "God forbid that I should knowingly go against [a superior] whoi has been designated as my interior and exterior judge, even in the slightest way." Padre Bernardino of Siena recalled that even as a very old man, Padre Pio would ask his superiors for permission to do the most trivial things, such as to tonsure himself, change his habit, or put on his mantle. .... In fact, Padre Pio once, when told that someone had accused him of disobedience, said: "If my superior ordered me to jump out of the window, I would not argue. I would jump."
Padre Pio and his fellow novices got plenty of opportunities to practice the virtues of humility and obedience under the not-so-tender care of the novice master, Padre Tommaso, who seems to have been a character out of a Dickens novel. The Constitutions prescribed that members of the community, novices included, "take the discipline" on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. In order to break their wills, the friars went to the choir, pulled the habit from their backs and posterior portions, and struck themselves on the bare flesh with a chain. The Constitutions, moreover, specified that during this act of discipline -- which seems so strange, even barbarous, today -- the friars were to think of the Passion of Jesus. The discipline was commanded as a defense against sexual passions, laziness, and inconstancy.
Padre Tommaso went a step further. He reportedly ordered the novices to whip themselves until their blood ran onto the floor of the choir. Moreover, without warning, without apparant provocation, he would order boys to administer the discipline at any time or place. He seemed to be very fond of doing this at mealtimes, requiring the hapless youth to go to the corner, strip, and flagellate himself until his back was a mass of bleeding flesh. The slightest infraction of the Rule was an occassion for harsh reproofs, mortifications, and heavy punishments. Sometimes Tommaso would fasten a wooden collar around the neck of a boy who displeased him, sometimes he would blindfold him, and sometimes he would make him eat off the ground. In the refractory, before eating his meager repast, each novice had to kneel at Tommasso's feet and beseech him, "Father, bless me." If Tommaso answered, "I bless you," the novice could rise and take his place in the dining hall. But if the master remained silent, the hapless boy had to stay there, kneeling on the cold floor until it was Tommaso's pleasure to dispose otherwise. Sometimes novices were forced to remain on their knees for the duration of the meal. And Padre Tommaso never gave any explanations.
Pio's friend Vincenzo Masone put up with this stifling regimen for only two months before going back to Pietrelcina. Then there was the novice from Naples, whose names have not been preserved, who was made to kneel, hungry, all through dinner. "Back home in Naples we pay a dime to see madmen," the boy sarcastically observed. "Here we see them for free." Tommaso overheard this and ordered the boy to strip and take the discipline there and then. The boy got up, left the friary, and never returned. Pio, however endured Tommaso's harshness and severity without complaint.
Novices, in addition to showing detachment from all material pleasures, were supposed to show detachment from family and friends. Too strong a desire on the part of a novice to see his family was taken as a sign that the boy lacked a genuine call from God to the Order. The Capuchins took quite literally our Lord's sayings: "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." Luke 14:26; and "And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." Luke 9:62. This practice caused Pio's parents considerable heartbreak.
Fra Pio, neither at this time nor later, complained. One of his confreres who wrote how Pio always "kept to the genuine spirit of his novitiate," had this to say: "Quite often when I went to his cell to call him, I found him on his knees at the end of his bed, or with his face buried in his hand over books. Sometimes he failed to appear in the choir for the night office and when I went to call on him I found him on his knees, deeply immersed in prayer. I never heard him complain of the poor food, although the friary could have given us something better. He never criticized the actions of his superiors and when others did he either rebuked them or else left their company. He never grumbled about the cold, which was really severe, or about the few blankets we were given. However, what struck me most about Fra Pio was his love of prayer."
Another religious who knew him as a novice recalled that when Pio prayed "he would weep many tears, so much that very often the floor would be stained."
Fra Pio appreciated the need for mortifying the flesh. A few years later, writing to a "spiritual daughter," quoting Galatians 5:24 in which St. Paul declares, "Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires," he wrote: "From this it is apparent that anyone who wants to be a true Christian ... must forty his flesh for no other reason than devotion to Jesus, who, for the love of us, mortified His entire body on the cross. The mortification must be consistent and steady, not intermittent, and it must last for one's whole life. Moreover, the perfect Christian must not be satisfied with a kind of mortification which merely appears to be severe. He must be sure that it hurts ... for ... all the evils which hurt your soul can be traced to the failure to practice due mortification of the flesh, either through ignorance or lack of the will to do so. If you want to [achieve holiness] you must master your flesh and crucify it, for it is the source of all evil."
In later years he would modify this position somewhat, at least to the extent that he became aware that few people were capable of the degree of ascetical rigor that he imposed on himself.
Unfortunately, no one bothered to explain to Giuseppa De Nunzio any of the customs of the Capuchin community life or any of the rules binding on the novices when, one day, she arrived to visit her son. She was escorted into the guest room and Fra Pio came down to meet her in the company of another friar, who never opened his mouth. He sat only a few feet away, immobile, with head down and eyes lowered. She was horrified when Pio, without showing any signs of affection, sat with his hands in his sleeves and his eyes lowered. When she gave him a number of presents, he showed no enthusiasm. "Thank you," he said, coldly and quietly. "I will take them to my superior." Unable to draw her son into any kind of conversation, she demanded: "Son, what's the matter? Why have you become mute?"
Beppa returned in tears to Pietrelcina without either Pio or any of his superiors having offered any explanation for his behavior. In later years Padre Pio recalled: "As soon as I saw my mother, my impulse was to throw myself into her arms. But the discipline of the novitiate did not permit this."
When Gra returned from America he was horrified at what Beppa told him about their son. He hurried to Morcone, where he demanded and received an explanation from Padre Tommaso. He was somewhat mollified but still disturbed by what he thought was unduly harsh treatment of the boys.
Extreme severity of this sort is a thing of the past. Moreover, if half of the stories told about him are true, Padre Tommaso had to ahve been excessive even for his time and place. Most modern Capuchins, however, suggest that not everything about traditional community life was bad. After all, at least one very positive thing can be said for the old ways: they produced Padre Pio. (C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.50-3)
Another relatively recent victim of divine love was Gemma Galgani, an Italian servant girl who, like Therese, early succombed to the agonies of tuberculosis. Fra Pio read her letters and was very much attacted by them. Gemma, also later canonized, had a vision in which she claimed that Jesus told her: "My child, I have need of victims, and strong victims, who by their sufferings, tribulation, and difficulties, make amends for sinners and for their ingratitude." Gemma responded: "I am the Victim, and Jesus the sacrificing priest. Act quickly, oh Jesus! All that Jesus wills, I desire. Everything that Jesus sends me is a gift." As in the case of Therese, Gemma's act of offering was followed by increased physical, mental, and spiritual suffering which, in the last two years of her life, included the stigmata.
... Frances (Fanny) Crosby, a Methodist, wrote numerous hymns abounding in images identifying with the sufferings of Christ. .... "If I didn't suffer, I would think God did not love me," she said.
.....
Padre Pio had numerous bodily visions of celestial as well as infernal beings who were as vividly present to him as were his flesh-and-blood colleagues. As we will see, he claimed that he was actually beaten and bloodies by demons and that he actually kissed the hands of Christ. (C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.58-61)
St Gemma is made a victim for sin and is crucified with Christ
Another incident, which took place three or four years earlier, is much more difficult to dispute. It involves the phenomenon known as bilocation, which we will explore in depth later in the book.
The year was 1905. Fra Pio was then studying at Sant'Elia a Pianisi. He had the presence of mind to write down his experience within three weeks of its occurrence and consign it to his superiors. The archives of the friary of Santa Maria delle Grazie at San Giovanni Rotondo still preserves the original deposition of Fra Pio, dated February 1905. He writes:
Several days ago, I had an extraordinary experience. Around 11:00 p.m. on January 18, 1905, Fra Anastasio and I were in the choir when suddenly I found myself far away in a wealthy home where the father was dying while a child was being born. Then appeared to me the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, who said to me: “I am entrusting this child to you. Now she is a diamond in the rough, but I want you to work with her, polish her, and make her as shinning as possible, because one day I wish to adorn myself with her.”
I answered, “How is this possible, since I am still a mere divinity student and do not yet know whether I will one day have the fortune and joy of becoming a priest? And even if I become a priest, how can I take care of this child since I am so far away?”
The Madonna said, “Do not doubt. She will come to you, but first you will meet her at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.” after that I found myself again in the choir.
Was it Pio's imagination? Did he fall asleep and dream? Worn out by fasting and penances, was he hallucinating? That very night, January 18, 1905, some three hundred fifty miles to the north, in the city of Udine, a wealthy man by the name of Giovanni Battista Rizzani was dying. His wife, Leonilde, had just become pregnant with her sixth child when he became terminally ill. No Rizzini was a fervent Mason and would have nothing to do with the Catholic -- or any other -- Church. As his illness grew worse, he grew more hardened and strictly forbade his wife to summon a clergyman. Meanwhile, as the end drew near, his Masonic friends surrounded the house day and night to frustrate the efforts of any priest to see the dying man.
Leonilde Rizzini, however, was a practicing Christian and prayed fervently to God that her husband might put his trust in the Lord before he died. About the same time that Fra Pio had his experience in the choir at Sant'Elia a Pianisi, Leonilde was kneeling by the bedside of her now-comatose husband, praying. Suddenly she looked up and saw a young man. She did not get a good look at his face, but he was wearing a Capuchin habit. As soon as she saw him, he left the room. Leonilde got up to follow him, but he seemed to vanish into thin air.
She had no time to try to figure out an explanation for the young man's disappearance, for the family dog immediately began to howl. The baying of a dog was believed to be a harbinger of imminant death, and, naturally, the noise set Leonilde's nerves on edge. Unable to stand the baying, she decided to go into the yard and untie the dog. Before she could reach the doorway, the distraught woman, then in her eighth month, was seized with labor pains. She called the family business manager, who lived on the premises and was in earshot, and he successfully delivered her of a baby girl.
Within moments, the mother, still bleeding, was able to gather the child into her arms, stagger up the stairs, lay the infant on a bed, and return to the side of her husband. The bussiness manager went outside and demanded that the Masons let the priest in. "You might have a point about stopping him from ministering to a man who insisted that no clergy be admitted to his bedside," he shouted, "but you have no right to keep him from baptizing the premature girl to whom his wife has just given birth!" At once Rizzani's Mason friends made way for the priest, who had been trying for hours to get through. He went directly to the sick room and began to minister to Rizzini. Suddenly the dying man opened his eyes, looked at the priest, and said distinctly, "My God! My God! Forgive me!" He drifted off into a coma again and died before morning.
In order to grasp fully what took place in 1905, we have to advance in time to the year 1922. After her husband's death, Leonilde Rizzani moved to Rome with her children. In the summer of 1922, the youngest girl, Giovanna, who had been born the night of her father's death, was in St. Peter's Basilica with a friend. She was about to enter college and was troubled. Her high school teacher had instilled serious doubts in her mind about the doctrine of the Trinity. She wanted to make her confession as well as talk to a priest about her dilemma. A guard told Giovanna and her friend that all the priests assigned to hear confessions had already gone for the day. Before they could leave, however, they encountered a young Capuchin who said that he would gladly hear Giovanna's confession.
When Giovanna told the young priest about her theological dilemma, he explained the doctrine of the Holy Trinity in such a way as to dispel her doubts. Giovanna emerged from the confessional and stood, waiting with her friend for the priest to come out of his side of the booth. The only person who appeared was an irate guard. "What are you doing here?" he demanded. "We're closed! You have to leave the Basilica. Come back tommorrow morning and you'll be able to make your confession."
"But I already made my confession," Giovanna told him. "Were waiting for the priest to emerge from the confessional so that we can kiss his hand. He's a Capuchin Father."
Exasperate, the guard went up to the confessional and opened the priest's compartment. "You see young ladies, there is no one here."
"But where did he go?" Giovanna exclaimed. "We've been standing here, watching, and we haven't seen him leave!" Giovanna and her friend pondered the situation and concluded that there was no way the priest could ahve left the confessional without them having seen him.
That fall Giovanna entered college. Sometime the following year, she was shown a picture of Padre Pio, who by then was quite famous, though she had never heard of him. Giovanna thought that he looked very much like the Capuchin priest she had encountered at St. Peter's. She wondered whether it might have been he but then dismissed the idea and thought no more about it.
The following summer (1923), Giovanna, an aunt and several friends decided to go to San Giovanni Rotondo to see Padre Pio. It was late afternoon when, standing in the crowd of people in the sacristy of the church, Giovanna caught her first glimpse of Padre Pio. To her amazement, he came right up to her and extended his hand for her to kiss, exclaiming, “Why, Giovanna! I know you! You were born the day your father died.”
Giovanna was nonplussed. How could this man have known such a thing? The next day, after hearing her confession, Padre Pio said to her, "At last you have come to me, my dear child. I have been waiting for you for so many years."
"Father what do you want of me?" asked the young woman. "I don't know you." Explaining that she had never been to San Giovanni Rotondo before, she went on, "I came with my aunt. Perhaps you’re mistaken and have confused me with some other girl.”
“No," said Padre Pio. "I am not mistaken. I knew you before."
"No, Father. I don't know you. I never saw you before."
"Last year," said Padre Pio. "one summer afternoon, you went with a friend to St. Peter’s Basilica and you made your confession before a Capuchin priest. Do you remember?”
“Yes, Father I do.”
“Well, I was that Capuchin!”
When he spoke those words, the young student was thunderstruck. Padre Pio said: “Dear child, listen to me. When you were about to come into the world, the Madonna carried me away to Udine to your mansion. She had me assist at the death of your father, telling me: ‘See, in this very room a man is dying. He is the head of a family. He is saved through the tears and prayers of his wife and through my intercession. The wife of the dying man is about to give birth to a child. I entrust this child to you. But first you must meet her at St. Peter's’ Last year I met you at St. Peter's, and now you have come here to San Giovanni Rotondo of your own accord, without my sending for you. And now let me take care of your soul, as the heavenly Lady desires.”
Giovanna burst into tears and asked Padre Pio, “Tell me, what I must do? Shall I become a nun?”
“By no means,” responded the Padre. “You will come often to San Giovanni Rotondo. I will take charge of your soul, and you will know the will of God.”
Later, when she heard Giovanna's story, Leonilde Rizzani came to see Padre Pio, who told her: "Madam, that little monk whom you saw walking towards the gallery of your mansion in the Udine when your husband was dying was I. I can assure you that your husband is saved. The Madonna, who appeared to me in the mansion and who bade me pray for your dying husband, told me Jesus had pardoned all his sins and that he is saved through her maternal intercession."
Both Giovanna and her mother were utterly convinced. One will notice that the words both women remember Padre Pio speaking to them in 1923 were almost identical with the account that Fra Pio had written a few days after the occurrence in 1905. (C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.66-69)
St. Padre Pio and Giovanna: The debt he paid for a soul 09.23/2011
Recall that the souvenir prayer card he composed for his ordination expressed the desire to be a "perfect victim." a few months after this, on November 29, 1910, he wrote to Bennedetto: "For some time I have felt the need to offer myself to the Lord as a victim for poor sinners and for souls in Purgatory. This desire has grown continuously in my heart, until now it has become a powerful passion. I made this offering to the Lord on other occasions, imploring Him to lay on me the punishments that are prepared for sinners and for the souls in Purgatory, even multiplying them a hundredfold, so long as He converts and saves sinners and quickly releases the souls in Purgatory, but I should Now, However, I wish to make this offering to the Lord with your Authorization. It seems to me that this is what Jesus wants. I am sure that you will not find it difficult to grant me this permission. (Different translation cited at "Saint Pio, Priest and Victim") ..... On the afternoon of September 7, 1910, Padre Pio appeared at Pannullo's office and showed him what appeared to be puncture wounds in the middle of his hands. .....
A few days after seeing Cardone, Pio wnet to Pannullo. "Pati, do me a favor," he said. "Let's pray together to ask Jesus to take away this annoyance. I do want to suffer, even to die of suffering, but all in secret." ...
the two men prayed and the wounds went away -- for a season.
.... On this occasion Padre Pio wrote:
Yesterday something happened, something I cannot explain or understand. In the middle of the palms of my hands there appeared a small red spot the size of a small coin, accompanied by a strong, sharp pain in the middle of the red spots. The pain was more intense in the middle of the left hand, so much so that I still feel it. Also I feel some pain in the soles of my feet.
This phenomenon has been going on for almost a year, yet recently there has been a brief period of time in which it has not occurred. Please do not be upset that I have not mentioned it to you before. The reason is that I had to overcome a cursed embarrassment to tell you about it. If you only knew the great effort I had to make to tell you about it! I would have told you many things, but I was unable to express myself.
... When Padre Raffaele conducted a series of interviews with Padre Pio in 1966 and 1967 ... at first forgotten ... declared that the stories of an earlier stigmatization were false and that "everything happened at San Giovanni Rotondo." When confronted with his own letters of fifty years before, the old man remembered that during his years in Pitrelcina, while praying in his little cabin in the Piana Romana, "in profound meditation and ecstasy, more than once I noticed fiery red spots in the palms of my hands, accompanied by extremely sharp pains that lasted several days. [Inoticed] puncture wounds in my side as well. But it was only at San Giovanni Rotondo that they appeared in permanent form and with an issue of blood." .....
Because he was still worried that God would hold him responsible if Pio died, Bennedetto was still unwilling to order him to report to a friary. .... "I tell you that your staying with your family troubles me very much, since I would not only want to see you at one of our friaries, but also at my side, so I could watch over you, for you know that I love you like a son. ..... If your illness is the express will of God and not a natural phenomenon, it is better for you to return to the shadow of community life. .... your health will always be what God wills."
Still, he hesitated to summon Pio through obedience.
Pio's answer to this letter has not been preserved. .... Whatever Pio said, it caused Benedetto to explode. On October 4 he wrote: "When one writes as superior and spiritual director, you ought to listen to what he tells you with reverence and inward submission and not argue with him with a kind of resentment! As your superior and director, I declare to you that your illness has no need of doctors, since it is a special dispensation from God, and for this reason, I am not of a mind to arrange an examination for you by another specialist."
..... "You see, then, how unfounded your accusation is an how wrong you are in obstinately believing in your own way!" .... "But you do not want to submit humbly to my judgement, and you do wickedly! I hope that this will be the last time that you refuse to submit to my instruction. Otherwise, I will not write to you anymore. Moreover, you really hurt me by saying that I do not love you ... that I want to kill you ...."
As soon as Pio received Benedetto's letter, he wrote a contrite and profuse apology: "With reddened eyes and trembling hand I write to you this letter to beg your forgiveness on bended knee. ... I repent of this matter as one who loves God is able to repent of his sins. Please pardon me, Father. I know I do not deserve a pardon, but your goodness towards me gives me hope. Do not be upset. Didn't you know that I am full of pride? Let us pray together to the Lord that He strike me down before I lapse again into such excesses!"
......
Padre Agostino observed that Padre Pio went into ecstasy two or three times a day. On seven occasions, the professor sat with pen in hand and transcribed everything that Pio had said. Other ecstasies were, for various reasons, left unrecorded. These celestial encounters, in which Pio seemed to converse with Jesus, Mary, and his Guardian angel, were usually either preceded or followed by diabolical vexations. The heavenly colloquies, Agostino observed, were usually longer than the infernal visitations, usually lasting between a half hour and forty-five minutes. The satanic visions usually lasted less than fifteen minutes.
In all, Agostino observed ten "diabolical apparitions." The first was the vision of a black cat. On another occasion, Pio had a vision of naked women who danced "lasciviously" in his room. Another time, the devil, invisibly, spat in his face. On yet another occasion, Pio complained of hideous noises that no one else could hear.
Evangelista and Agostino were horrified one day to see Padre Pio writhing as if he were being struck repeatedly. Alarmed, they fell to their knees and began to pray and sprinkle him and the rest of the room with holy water. After fifteen minutes, Pio came to himself and said that he had been flogged by horrible men who looked like professional torturers. Other times, he said that demons appeared to him in the form of various friends, colleagues, and superiors, and even in the form of the reigning pontiff and of Jesus, Mary, St. Francis, and his guardian angel. He recognized the diabolic ruse through a certain feeling of disgust and through his insistence that the mysterious visitors praise Jesus. When they refused, he knew that they were of the devil.
......
Again Padre Pio offered himself as a victim and prayed for the stigmata to return: "If You give me the strength, permit that those nails ... permit it, yes, in my hands ... if it be Your will .... but invisibly, because men despise your gifts ...."
...
On Sunday, December 3, as he talked to Jesus, Pio was troubled about the sins of unworthy priests. Again he offered himself as a victim, this time precisely on their behalf: "My Jesus, why are you so bloody this morning? .... They did wicked things to you today? ... Alas, even on Sunday, You must suffer the offenses of ungrateful men! ... How many abominations took place within your sanctuary! ... My Jesus, pardon! Lower that sword! ... If it must fall, may it find it's place on my head alone ... Yes, I want to be the victim! ... Here is the unusual excuse,'You are too weak!' ,,, Yes, I'm weak ... but, my Jesus, You are able to strengthen me. ... Then punish me and not others. ... Even send me to hell, provided that I can still love You and everyone [else] is saved. Yes, everyone!"
Here Pio echoes Moses, who prayed, “Alas, this people has sinned a great sin. They have made for themselves gods of gold. But now, if you will forgive their sin—but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written.” (Exodus 32:31-32). He echoes St. Paul, who wrote, "For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers" (Romans 9:3).
It was in ecstasy that the Lord apparently explained to Pio that he would have to return to Pitrelcina. In previous ecstasies, as we have seen, he expressed his alarm about his inability to remain in any friary. He had been terrified when he learned that Padre Pacifico, the minister general, was thinking of dismissing him from the Order because of his ill health and that it might be necessary for him to journey to Rome to plead his case. "O my Jesus," Pio lamented, "You want to send me to that land of exile! ... Aren't I a priest here? ... What do I have to do [in Pitrelcina]?" At this point, Jesus apparently tells Pio his return is part of Jesus' plan to glorify himself in the Friar. "You want to glorify Yourself in me?" asks Pio. "And who am I? ... If only men could know my sins! ... Daddy is proud of me and goes around boasting about me. ... Oh, if he only knew, if he only knew. ..."
St. Francis of Assisi also appeared to him. "Seraphic Father," Pio complained, "are you expelling me from your Order? ... Aren't I your son anymore?" Pio seems to have been assured by St. Francis that he would never be expelled from the Capuchin Order and that it was God's will for him to remain in Pietrelcina for a time.
Two of Padre Pio's ecstasies were observed by Dr. Nicola Lombardi. On Novemeber 28, Lombardi had found Pio lying in bed and apparently staring at the ceiling. The young man was talking to the Lord. Lombardi lit a candle and held it in front of Pio's eyes. "When he comes to himself, you'll see that he remembers nothing of what has happened." Lombardi was wrong. Without being told about the doctors visit, he complained bitterly to Jesus about it the next day as, we have seen.
.....
"Let me show you something, Doctor," Padre Evangelista said a few moments later. Instructing the doctor to remain in the room, the guardian went outside. Within moments Pio awoke, alert and cheerful. Evangelista, coming into the room, explained to the physician that, while standing in the corridor, he had called to Pio in obedience, but in such a low voice that his command could be heard by no one in Pio's room. Even so, Pio awoke. Apparently, the sick friar was not aware through his physical senses of anything going on in the room; but his guardian angel was and let him know when anything of importance was happening. When Lombardi called him, Pio was permitted to ignore him, but when a superior called him through holy obedience, even though Pio might be talking to the Lord, he was obliged to break off his conversation and obey the command. (C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.78-91)
During his "exile" in Pietrelcina, Padre Pio celebrated Mass nearly every day, often in rural churches that were part of the parish. He also taught school. One of his students, Celestino Orlando, recalled in his seventies how diligently Padre Pio had worked to help him -- a slow student -- learn mathematics. Once as a reward for mastering a particularly hard problem, Pio invited the boy to his home to enjoy a dinner of fried fish. He remembered Pio as a strict disciplinarian who always prayed before he taught. If two boys got to fighting and swore, he would not hesitate to take off one of his sandals and swat them with it.
the people of Pietrelcina sensed there was something different about Padre Pio. He continued to observe "the discipline" on the customary days, striking himself with a metal chain until the blood ran. When he was praying at his hut in the Piana Romana, the curios would peer in to see "the mad monk." Mammella would make his bed, but Pio considered it too luxurious and insisted on sleeping on the ground with a rock as his pillow. .... The marquess called on Pio and explained to him that his conduct was a breach of the obedience he owed his mother. Thereafter Pio slept on the bed. Pious practices such as these at first led many to dismiss Padre Pio as a crank and a fanatic. (C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.96-7)
Padre Pio was not entirely original in the advice that he gave to Raffaelina and other spiritual daughters. In writing to them he often quoted entire passages from Padre Benedetto's letters. In fact, when he was finnally allowed to hear confessions and was told by a penitent that he sounded exactly like Benedetto in the advise he gave, Padre Pio admitted that this was true, in that it was Padre Benedetto who "formed" him.
....
When both Benedetto and Agostino asked Pio to ask Jesus why it was God's will that he remain outside the friary, Pio reported that Jesus said to tell them that they should not ask. This did not satisfy Padre Benedetto, who, in June 1914, ordered Pio to Morcone. "Have fear of nothing," wrote Agostino, who was to accompany him there. "Everything will result in God's glory and your good. If you die, I am sure you will go to enjoy the beauty of our Divine Bridegroom. ... If he asked your life, would you not content Him? Then let the Lord's will be done!"
.....
Meanwhile, even more troublesome events were taking place in Italy and throughout the world. As early as May 1914, Pio had been sought for supernatural illumination on the deteriorating international situation. In response to a question by Benedetto, Pio said that Jesus didn't want him to disclose the ultimate outcome of the world situation. He would only tell the provincial: "Let's pray .... We do not deserve divine assistance, since we have willingly banished the most lovable Jesus ....."
Less than two months later, on June 28, a Serbian terrorist assassinated the heir to ..... Pio saw the terrifying conflict as God's punishment for man's unbelief, ....
When Italy entered the war on the side of the Allies in the spring of 1915, Pio lamented, "Italy did not want to listen to the voice of love." ..... Alas, because of our nation's sin, since it has become abominable and detestable in Hod's sight, I fear that the Lord in His furious anger will punish us according to strict justice. May it please this God of goodness, who is rightly enraged with our country, to behave as a loving father and not as a rigorous judge as we deserve only too well. In the excess of His love for His creatures, May He change the punishment itself into a wholesome cleansing for all of us."
....
.... " ... The greatest mercy of God is not to let those nations remain in peace with each other who are not in peace with God ...." (C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.119-23)
Padre Aurelio Di Iorio of Sant' Elia a Pianisi studied under Padre Pio from 1916 to 1918. He admitted in an interview in July 1971 that Padre Pio was not the world's greatest teacher: "He had a superficial way of teaching. He taught history and grammar, but he knew little of the former and none of the latter. His lectures were never more than twenty minutes long, and they were unprepared. He was not strict, not even when he administered examinations. He let the kids do pretty much what they wanted."
Aurrelio nonetheless recalled that there was something special about the friar with his dreamy eyes and beautiful smile: "He cast a spell over people. there was just something about him -- a charm, a spell. It was only later that people considered him a saint. .... The key to his charm was his humanity. His sanctity was his humanity."
....
Aurelio was aware of at least one supernatural occurrance. One day he scolded one of the boys very harshly, even going so far as to call his faith into question. That night Aurelio awoke to see in his room a terrifying shadowy form whose breath was fetid. Objects in the room began to crash to the floor. In terror, Fra Aurelio ran to Padre Pio's room, shouting: "I don't want to go back there! There's a devil in my room!"
Padre Pio did not seem at all alarmed. He smiled and said: "Go back to your room. This is proof that God wanted to give you that you'll be better .... You did wrong in judging your fellow student so harshly. Yes, that was a devil. And thank God you didn't see his face!" .....
Within weeks of Padre Pio's arrival a group of devout ladies was meeting and praying with him twice weekly in the parlatorium, or guest room, of the friary. ....
.... On January 27 or 28, 1917, Padre Pio took to his bed. Paolino was concerned when he saw his face was flushed and he had trouble breathing. He seemed to lack the energy to speak or even to move his limbs. The father guardian was even more horrified when he tried to take his temperature. the mercury climbed to 108 degrees Fahrenheit, then broke the bulb of the thermometer. Paoplino hurried to the bathroom and fetched a bath thermometer, freed it from its wooden sheath, and placed it under Pio's armpit. The temperature soared to 125.5 degrees. ...... On February 12, Pio was able to write to a spiritual daughter named Maria Gargani. He spoke of the "extreme fever which the thermometer was inadequate to measure because its heat was so great as to explode it" and added: "I am neither healed nor sick, but I think that soon I will be the first to succomb." He was wrong, however, and on February 23 he was able to speak of his "miraculous" recovery in a letter to Agostino.
......
Shortly afterward Padre Pio was comforted by a divine visitation that seemed to signal the approach of peace. Just before Christmas he wrote Padre Benedetto: "In one of his visits that I received from Jesus in recent days, I asked Him insistently to have compassion on the poor nations, so tried by the misfortune of war, and cause his justice to give way at last to mercy. It was strange. He answered only by means of a gesture that seemed to say, 'Slowly Slowly.' 'But when?' I asked. And He, with a serious expression, but with a half smile on his lips, gazed at me briefly and, without another word, dismissed me."
He told Benedetto that he never remembered Jesus making such a gesture before in a vision when he questioned him about the war, but "always observed a profound silence." (C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.132-5)
... spiritual children began to experience events they characterized as "miracles." Nina Campanille, in her memoirs, wrote of two such events that occurred early in her association with Padre Pio. The first occurred when her mother was taken ill with a respiratory ailment her doctor diagnosed as double pneumonia and for which doctors applied eight leeches to draw blood. When Padre Pio heard about this, he was horrified, and shouted, "She must not be bled!" He insisted that Nina's mother was suffering not from pneumonia but from maleria. Without seeing or examining the sick woman, he insisted that there had been a misdiagnosis. Time bore out the wisdom of what he said. the leeches were removed and another (and presumably more competent) physician summoned who conducted tests which revealed that Nina's mother did have malaria and not pneumonia.
On February 2, 1918, shortly after Nina's mother recovered, one of her sisters fell in her home. Complaining of violent pains in the area of her liver, she lapsed into a coma. The doctor who examined her decided that her liver was badly damaged and that there were other grave internal injuries. He said that the injured woman's condition was hopeless. There was nothing to be done but wait for her to die.
Nina hurried up the hill and asked for Padre Pio, who told her not to worry, and that her sister would recover. That evening the sister was still in a coma, vomiting every fifteen minutes. Nina called her name, tapped her, and even pinched her, but the sister was oblivious to everything.
A friend of Nina's, who was there with her in the room, began to turn pale. When Nina asked her if she was ill, she replied, "No, the Padre is here." Never having heard of the phenomenon of bilocation, she asked her friend, "What do you mean, 'The Padre is here'?"
"He's here in spirit," said the friend.
"How is he dressed?" asked Nina, who saw nothing.
"Like a Monk."
"If I touch him, will I feel anything?"
"Of course not. He's a spirit. See," she said, poking the air. "He has come near your sister, and he said, 'Poor child!'”
Ten minutes Nina's friend said, “Now he has gone away.”
Nina went up to her sister and asked, "How do you feel?"
Suddenly regaining consciousness, the injured woman replied,“Much better.”
Nina looked at her watch. It was 8:00 PM. The next day, with her sister clearly on the mend, Campanile went to the friary and found Padre Pio in the courtyard. She asked him, point blank: “Padre, what time did you come to my house last night?” Without batting an eye he looked at her and said in a matter of fact way, “Around eight.”
Padre Pio discouraged, however, too great a curiosisty in the miraculous and extraordinary. Whenever people asked him about his visions or alleged miraculous events, he said, "That is for the ecclesiastical authorities." He once told a friar, "I'm convinced that so many people don't want to live by faith, but seek the extraordinary." ......
Chapter 12 The Stigmata
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"Padre Pio, I am Pietro Di Mauro, son of Nicola, nicknamed Precoco." He went on to say, "I died on September 18, 1886, in this friary in cell number 4, when it was still [a poorhouse]. One night, while in bed, I fell asleep with a lighted cigar, which ignited the [mattress] and I died, suffocated and burned. I am still in Purgatory. I need a holy Mass in order to be freed. God permitted that I come and ask you for help."
....
A few days later, Padre Pio told the story to Padre Paolino, and the two decided to go to the town hall, where tehy looked at the vital statistics .... had in fact died of burns ... in room Number 4 .... (C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.144-7)
... In July, Pope Benedixt XV urged all Christians to pray for an end to the world war, which was still raging; and, on July 27, despite his sufferings, Pio offered himself as a victim for the end of the war. "No sooner had I made this offering," he wrote, "than I felt myself plunged into a terrible prison and heard the crash of the gate behind me." From that moment, every minute of the day he felt as if he were in hell. ......
Yet in the same breath with which he describes this abandonment by god, he recounts a striking vision in which Christ appears and pierces his side. Both St. Teresa of Avila and St. Therese of Lisieux had very similar experiences. This is what befell Padre Pio on August 5, 1918. He wrote Padre Benedtto: "I was hearing the confessions of our boys ... when suddenly I was filled with extreme terror at the sight of a heavenly Being who presented himself to the eye of my intellect. He held some kind of a weapon in His hand, something like a long, sharp-pointed steel blade, which seemed to spew out fire. At the very instant that I saw this, I saw that Personage hurl the weapon into my soul with all His might. It was only with difficulty that I did not cry out. I thought I was dying. I told the boy to leave because I felt ill and did not feel that I could continue. ... This agony lasted uninterruptedly until the morning of the 7th. I cannot tell you how much I suffered during this period of anguish. Even my internal organs were torn and ruptured by that weapon. ... From that day on I have been mortally wounded. I feel in the depths of my soul a wound that is always open and causes me continual agony.
Pio's letter leaves it unclear whether a physical wound was involved, but in a deposition made in February 1967, Padre Pio stated unambiguously that a visible, physical wound in his side resulted from the experience. ....
The two dozen or so boys in the college were almost all ill. A doctor examined them and prescribed injections. Because he was understandably overworked, he taught Paolino and Pio how to give the injections. Since alcohol was unavailable, the doctor left some carbolic acid to sterilize the site of the injection. Unfortunately, the exhausted Doctor didn't think to tell the friars that they were to dilute the carbolic acid before applying it to their pupils' posteriors. Thus before giving the shots, they swabbed the acid on full strength. Because they spilled some of the solution on themselves in the process of giving the injections, Paolino was left with angry red spots on his fingers and Pio with similar marks on his hands. As for the boys, Paolino recounted, "You can imagine what happened to the parts of the body we had disinfected for the injection!"
When the boys were able to sit down again, they were mystified as to why Padre Pio, during his lectures, kept his hands covered with his shawl. Paolino also noticed some peculiar behavior. When the two men were praying together in the choir, he noticed red spots still in evidence on Pio's hands while the burns on his own fingers had already disappeared. Padre Pio, when he saw that the superior was looking at his hands, reacted by covering them with the sleeves of his habit.
During the last week in September, Nina Campanile urgently asked Padre Paolino if she could speak to him alone. "Do you know that Padre Pio had the Stigmata?" she asked. The guardian burst out laughing at the credulity of this country schoolmarm and explained that the marks that she saw were the result of contact with carbolic acid. She disagreed, insisting that the red marks were of supernatural origin.
Fifty years later, at the age of seventy-five, Campanile committed to paper her memories of those days:
On September 18 I was at the friary, and I spoke with the Padre, kissed his hand when I came and when he dismissed me, but there was no mark on his hands. ....
Paolino decided to learn the truth. He entered Pio's room one day without knocking and found him at his desk. "Go on writing," he told him. "This morning I've nothing to talk to you about." As Padre Pio wrote, the father guardian was able to get a good look at his hands. The marks were definitely not those left by the carbolic acid. "Drawing closer to him, I was first able to see the wound on the back and in the palm of the right hand. Then I saw the wound on the back of the left hand. I could not see the palm of the left hand because he was resting it on the table to steady his paper."
Padre Paolino left the room without saying anything and immediately wrote to Padre Benedetto, urging him to come at once, as Padre Pio had received the stigmata. Benedetto did not come but warned Paolino to observe the strictest silence about the matter.
.... His attitude changed when Padre Pio wrote to him, speaking of an "Exalted Being" who had wounded his entire being. "Ah, Dear Father," he wrote, "help me, for pity's sake. I am bleeding profusely within and many times I must resign myself to seeing the blood flow externally, too."
"Dear Son, tell me everything quite frankly, and not just by allusions," Benedetto wrote. "What is this Exalted Being doing? Whence is the blood flowing and how many times a day or week? What has happened to your hands and feet and how did it happen? I want to know everything in detail, under holy obedience."
.... He did not identify the Exalted Being as Christ, but described the hands, feet, and side as dripping blood. .....
Who was this mysterious being? In a deposition made to a confrere in March 1966 (forty-seven years later), Pio declaredm "All of a sudden, a great light shown round my eyes. In the midst of this light there appeared the wounded Christ. He said nothing to me before he disappeared." In an interview on February 6, 1967, he was pressed into further detail. The crucifix in the choir transformed itself "into a great Exalted Being, all blood, from whom there came forth beams of light with shafts of flame that wounded me in the hands and feet. My side had already been wounded on the fifth of August of the same year."
It is clear that Padre Pio, at least by the end of his life, identified the "Exalted Being" who appeared to him in August and September of 1918 as Christ.
When the ecstasy ended, Pio was on the floor, his hands, feet, and side dripping blood. (C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.151-5)
.... Not a few stigmatists were frankly "weird" if not truly unbalanced.
There were several stigmatics contemporary with Padre Pio. The best known was a Bavarian laywoman by the name of Therese Neumann; eleven years younger than Padre Pio, she received the stigmata in the side in 1925 and wounds in the hands and feet the following year. These persisted until her sudden death from a heart attack in 1962.
.....
Like Padre Pio, Neumann was reportedly subject to bilocations, visions, ecstacies, and raptures. ...... She once sent her greetings to Padre Pio and asked him to pray for her.
It is not known whether there was any contact between Padre Pio and a sickly lady of Woonsocket, Rhode Island, by the name of Marie Rose Alma Ferron, a native of Quebec who suffered most of her life from crippling arthritis .... She was alleged to have manifested a number of mystical phenomena, ......
One of the few stigmatists who was not a Roman Catholic was Elsie Nilsson Gjessing, a member of Central Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Born in 1904. she received the stigmata as a child in Sweden, and it is said to have continued until her death at age seventy-nine. She has been described by one of her pastors as a sweet and humble woman, "so ordinary in every way." She was allegedly gifted with many ecstasies and she was also one of the few married stigmatists. The wounds in her hands, feet and side were said to have bled copiously from Holy Thursday night until 3 P.M. on Good Friday. .... She claimed to have seen and talked with Christ and her guardian angel, as well as with Martin Luther. ....
There can be no doubt that Padre Pio had persistent, bleeding wounds in his hands for nearly fifty years. This fact is beyond dispute, since the wounds were seen by thousands of people over the years when he exposed his hands while saying Mass. Before the Holy Office forbade him, in the 1920s, to show his wounds, the stigmata were examined by several doctors. Apparently the first was Angelo Maria Merla, a physician who also served as San Giovanni Rotondo's mayor. Her declared that he could affirm that the lesions were not, as some believed, the result of tuberculosis, but that he could not say with any certainty what caused them without extensive tests. Professor Giuseppe Bastianelli, personal physician to Pope Benedict XV, examined the wounds, but no written report of his examinations has come to light. Detailed reports do exist from three physicians who made exhaustive studies of the stigmata in 1919 and 1920. Luigi Romanelli, the physician-in-chief of the City Hospital in Barletta, examined Padre Pio's wounds five times between May 1919 and July 1920. Dr. Amico Bignami professor of pathology at the University of Rome, studies the stigmata over a period of several days in July 1919. Dr. Giorgio Festa, a surgeon in private practice at Rome, made three examinations of Padre Pio's wounds, the last in 1925, when the patient underwent a hernia operation. By then the Holy Office had forbidden Padre Pio to show his wounds to anyone -- even a physician -- without it's expressed permission, and, since Festa did not have this permission, in order to show his obedience to ecclesial authority, Pio refused anesthesia. Fortunately (for Festa), Pio passed out under the knife, providing the surgeon the opportunity to examine the lesions after an interval of five years.
Because of the continuing restrictions of the Holy Office, there were no more extensive examinations of the stigmata, although several physicians, as well as some of Pio's confreres, were, at times, able to observe the wounds for brief periods of times. No study was undertaken of the stigmata after Padre Pio's death for the singular reason that the wounds disappeared entirely shortly before -- without leaving the slightest trace or scar!
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..... Sophisticated blood tests evidently did not exist during the years when Padre Pio's wounds were being studfied in depth, but Dr. Luigi Pancaro, who treated him in the 1950s, for unrelated physical problems, ran a battery of tests and found his "bloodwork" entirely normal. ..... Dr. Giuseppe Sala, Pio's physician from 1956 to 1968, also reported that none of the tests he ran on his patient's blood revealed any abnormality. "He had beautiful bloodwork." .....
.... Yet he concluded that they could not have penetrated through the entire structure of the hand, since the location of the wounds on the back of the hands did not correspond exactly to the position of the wounds on the palms. ...... When Dr. Alberto Caserta of Foggia X-rayed Pio's hands and feet on October 14, 1954, he found no abnormality in the structure or position of the bones. .....
.... He frequently replied to those who asked him if the stigmata hurt, "Do you think the Good Lord gave them to me for decoration?" Dr. Festa noted that Padre Pio could not close his hand completely, and that even the gentlest pressure on the feet caused great agony. He also recounted that walking was extremely painful for Padre Pio. ....
The question remains as to how the stigmata of Padre Pio can be explained scientifically. When Padre Benedetto questioned Dr. Romanelli, he received the reply, "From all that I know and all that I can tell, these lesions cannot be classified among ordinary injuries. ... I have never found a clinical indication that would authorize me to classify the injuries. I do not wish to speak of 'stigmata' because doing so would be outside the competence of a physician." Dr. Bignami, on the other hand, offered the hypothesis that Padre Pio's wounds were the product of a "morbid state," involving a multiple necrosis of the skin, perhaps unconsciously caused by a phenomenon of sugestion, artificially maintained by the use of chemicals [that is, the iodine which Padre Pio was using to disinfect the wounds]. Dr. Festa, who was a devout Catholic, did not hesitate to describe Padre Pio's wounds as true stigmata, of supernatural origin.
There are good reasons to argue against Bignami's hypothesis that Padre Pio's wounds had a neurotic origin. There is no evidence that Padre Pio suffered from neurosis, as commonly understood. everyone who knew him found him cheerful, serene, and well-balanced. ....
.... First, there is the fact that, while the stigmata never healed, all other wounds sustained by Padre Pio during the course of his life mended normally. Pio carried all his life a large scar on one of his fingers which resulted from cutting his finger with a knife when he was a boy. During the 1920s, Pio underwent surgery for an inguinal hernia and for a cyst on his neck. Both incisions healed and scarred normally, while the wounds on his hands, feet, and side persisted. Second, it is of great significance that he stigmata disappeared spontaneously shortly before Padre Pio's death, vanishing without the slightest scar. Even Dr. Bignami, who believed the wounds to be superficial, conceded that they involved the dermis as well as the epidermis. According to dermatologists, any wound involving more than the epidermis will leave a scar. Yet, despite the fact that at death Padre Pio's body manifested normal scars from injuries and surgical procedures, the deep wounds that he carried for nearly fifty years in his hands, feet, and side healed without a trace!
Padre Pio showed no interest whatsoever in attempts to explain his stigmata. When asked why his hand wounds were in the palms rather than in the wrists (where victims of crucifiction were routinely nailed), he shrugged his shoulders and said, "Oh, I guess it would be too much to have them exactly like they were in the case of Our Lord." When people suggested that the stigmata were caused by to great a degree of concentration on the Passion of Christ, Pio responded, "Go out to the fields and look very closely at a bull. Concentrate on him with all your might and see if you start to grow horns." (C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.159-65)
By late spring, men were waiting up to two weeks for an opportunity to make their confessions to Padre Pio. As there were no hotels in San Giovanni Rotondo, many slept outdoors in the fields. Padre Paolino was astounded by the great numbers of farmers who neglected their crops to spend a fortnight in an effort to see "the man of God." .....
...... Inevitably, too, there were pickpockets, who plied their trade not only in the streets and courtyard but in the very church. Even Padre Pio was the victim of a thief. In April 1919 he complained to Padre Nenedetto that someone had walked off with his breviary.
The clothing of the friars was laundered in town. Whenever Padre Pio's underwear or night clothing was sent out, it was not returned. In its place was sent an identical but new garment. The original one, the friars soon discovered, was cut up into pieces and sold. Village entrepreneurs were even daubing pieces of cloth in chicken blood and selling them as articles of clothing stained by blood from Padre Pio's stigmata. .... To make matters worse, fistfight were breaking out among men disputing places in line for confession.
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One of the earliest and most vociferous critics of Padre Pio was a priest named Don Giovanni Miscio, a thirty-three-year-old teacher in an elementary school. Early in 1919 he began to write to the newspapers, to Archbishop Gagliardi, to the Capuchin minister general, and even to the Vatican, accusing the friars of "putting Padre Pio on display for the purpose of making money." He alleged that the Capuchins were running a lucritive business, hawking materials supposedly worn or handled by the stigmatized priest. (C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.167-9)
The article was read by a twenty-six-year-old ne'er-do-well named Emanuele Brunatto. Born in a well-to-do family on September 9, 1892, Brunatto was a complex and interesting character, highly intelligent, crafty, and clever, uncompromising, volatile, and intensely loyal. Educated by the Salesian Order, Brunatto at one time entertained thoughts of becoming a priest, but by the time he grew into adolescence, he had drifted away from the Church and found that his chief interests in life were money and sex. Wanting neither to work nor to further his education, Brunatto was leading the life of a drifter and confidence man when he ahd a vivid dream about his dead father. In the dream his father blessed him. "His face irradiated an indescribable spiritual light," Brunatto wrote later. "He said, 'Kneel.' I obeyed. He put his hands on my head, and I felt a warmth go out of the palms that was like liquid that penetrated my body and soul."
When Brunatto awoke, he thought about the dream for a while, then continued his frantic pursuit of pleasure. After he read the article in the Matino about Colonello, he was seized by a sudden impulse to visit Padre Pio. ....
.....
At that moment, the priest hearing confessions turned and looked at him. "Rather," writes Brunatto, "he pierced me with his gaze, which was hard and angry." Brunatto saw before him a man with course features, a harsh expression, and an unkempt beard. "Is this the saint?" he asked himself. "With that bandit's face? And why does he look at me with such hatred? How lovely, to spend all my money to make this trip then to meet -- him!" Terribly shaken, Brunatto stormed out of the friary. He tells us: "There remains to me but a vague remembrance. I know I fled the sacristy like a madman and found myself in the open, alone, along the crude face that enclosed the monastery garden, my hands grasping the loose-fitting stones. I sobbed and wailed like a little child, 'My Lord and my god!' It is impossible to describe the grief and the hope that tormented me as I poured out my soul."
Returning to the friary, he found Padre Pio all alone. He was waiting for him. His countenance had undergone a remarkable change. It now seemed to be "of surpassing beauty, radiating indescribable joy. Even his beard no longer appeared unkempt. And in his eyes was love." Without a word Padre Pio signaled Brunatto to kneel. ....
.....
Back home in Naples, several days later Brunatto had an unusual experience: "All of a sudden my past life began to pass before me like the projection of a film: the dangers run, the sins committed, the griefs and .... One fact, however, was clear to me: the operator of this film was Padre Pio."
......
The summer and fall of 19419 must have been extremely difficult for Padre Pio. Besides the visible stigmata, besides the crowds, besides the loss of privacy, he had to contend with a week long medical examination in August by Dr. Amico Bignami of the University of Rome, who was dispatched by the Vatican. Whereas Romanelli was a devout Catholic, who requested Padre Pio's blessing before examining the stigmata, Bignami was an atheist. As we have seen, he hypothesized that the wounds might have been the result of "neurotic necrosis" due to a "morbid state." He felt that perhaps the wounds failed to heal because of the iodine Padre Pio was using both as a disinfectant and in an attempt to close the wounds. He suggested to Padre Paolino to "bandage and seal the wounds in the presence of two witnesses and to inspect the seals in the presence of the same witnesses for eight days so that one can be certain that the wounds have not been touched, much less treated." After eight days a careful report on the status of the wounds was to be made. It was Bignami's belief that after being sealed for eight days, the wounds would show signs of healing.
After following Bignami's instructions, on the eighth day, under oath, the three friars charged with the bandaging of Padre Pio's wounds reported: "(1) the state of the wounds during the eight days remained the same, except on the last day when they were of a vivid red color; (2) every day ... all the wounds bled; on the last day it was much more abundant. In applying the bandages we did not use and medical preparation and ... even though we had entire confidence in Padre Pio, we removed, so as to avoid any suspicion, even the vial of tincture of iodine which he kept in his room."
It is not recorded what Bignami's response was to this report. He never again visited Padre Pio, although rumor had it that years later, when he was paralyzed by a stroke, he asked for Padre Pio's prayers. Padre Pio ceased to use iodine but the wounds persisted unchanged. (C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.174-7)
It was alleged that fairly early in his career as archbishop, Gagliardi had been arrested by civil authorities on charges of raping a nun but that he was not prosecuted. Apparently, even in his sixties, Gagliardi was on several occasions publicly accused of sexual molestation and unchasity. On one occasion Gagliardi's valet testified that his employer was sexually corrupt.
....
Certainly, by the 1920s, however gifted and promising he had been in earlier years, Gagliardi, whether through mental instability, substance abuse, or sheer satanic perversity, was increasingly guilty of conduct unbecoming to a churchman. Allegedly he neglected to visit his parishes to administer the sacrament of confirmation with the result that in various parishes many years passed without administration of that sacrament. Moreover, it was reported that he stripped churches of valuable works of art on the pretext that he was selling them to benefit the poor, while in reality he did so to pocket the revenue. As early as 1919, when a riot broke out against him in the town of Vieste, he was wildly hated by the common people of his archdiocese.
In the "Mother Church" in Vieste there was a statue of the Virgin Mart -- loved and honored by the people -- which was believed to have miraculous powers. Suddenly it disappeared. Word spread around town that the archbishop had ordered its removal and sale. People refused to believe the sacristan who produced the statue from a storage room and insisted that it had been removed only temporary for repairs. The crowd, increasing, began to howl for the archbishop's blood.
Gagliardi was at the time celebrating Mass in a side chapel. A crowd of six hundred men, women, and children burst in on him and pelted him with stones and bricks. Depite the fact that the prelate was saying Mass, the mob charged the altar, grabbed his missal and paten, threw them at at him, knocked him to the floor, and began to punch and kick him, until several priests intervened to drag the archbishop into an adjoining room, slamming the door against the raging crowd.
As the surging mass of people cursed and pounded the door, two policemen arrived and escorted Gagliardi from the church through a back door. The mob, realizing what was happening, poured into the street and surrounded the archbishop, the policemen, and the priests. A group of angry women with butcher knives seized Gagliardi, and, ripping off his vestments while the men chanted obscenities, were about to castrate him, when just in time, a contingent of state troopers (carabinieri) arrived to rescue the prelate intact and carry him unconscious and bleeding, to his mansion, where he was bedridden for a month.
Although Padre Pio and his followers had absolutely nothing to do with the Vieste riot, it is possible that Gagliardi associated him with the supersticious violence that nearly led to his death or mutilation. (C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.185-8)
The Forgiones were soon drawn into the tempest that was raging around Padre Pio. In December 1925, Canon Miscio, who had written letters to the Vatican denouncing Pio, now wrote an entire book "against the honor" of Padre Pio and the Forgione family. He then went to Pietrelcina, showed Michele the manuscript, and told him that he had been given an advance of five thousand lire but would agree to forgo the publication if Forgione would pay him the amount of the advance, which would have to be refunded.
Michele told Don Giovanni that he did not have such a sum on hand but that he was willing to sell some of his land "so that Padre Pio won't have to suffer anymore." Don Giovanni agreed. Michele, however told Brunatto, and Brunatto hurried to Rome, where he told Cardinal Gasparri. The portly prelate exploded: "Have that canon put in jail! That will cast a little light into the thicket at San Giovanni Rotondo!"
Meanwhile, so as not to have to sell land, Michele had convinced Miscio to accept four thousand lire in cash and a promissory note for the rest. He paid Miscio, however, with bills whose serial numbers he had registered with the police, whom he alerted to the scheme. Within a short time, the extortionist was caught. ....
Padre Pio almost fainted when he learned what had happened. In vain he tried to persuade Michele not to press charges. He refused to listen to Pio, ....
.....
Padre Pio roared: "I have spoken! I am sending you to see that the priest is not condemned!"
.....
.... Miscio received a suspended sentence. Until he received news of the verdict, Pio paced about, shaking his head and weeping, sighing: "A priest in jail! A priest in jail! And all because of Padre Pio!"
Although Miscio did not go to prison, he lost his job as teacher. Padre Pio, however, wrote to the state government and pleaded -- successfully -- for Miscio's reinstatement. .... Even in infirm old age, Miscio would totter up to the friary to visit Padre Pio, to whom he memained eternally grateful, to ask for his prayers. ......
Meanwhile, new fires of contention were breaking out. The same year as the Miscio affair, Padre Pio denied absolution to Maria DiMaggio, the longtime mistress of Archpriest Don Giuseppe Prencipe. So lax were the local secular clergy that it was not uncommon for those who were not homosexual to live with their women as man and wife for years. Maria DiMaggio, sixty years old, had lived with Don Giuseppe (who was twelve years her junior) for nearly a quarter century. Padre Pio insisted that their relationship was sinful and demanded that it be terminated. While DiMaggio was willing to terminate the relationship, the archpriest was not. When, at his insistence, Maria DiMaggio continued to sleep with Principe, Padre Pio refused to absolve her. She went to a priest in another town, who upheld Padre Pio.
DiMaggio signed a statement in which she alleged that Don Giuseppe had originally tempted her into bed by telling her that the Sacred Scriptures permit the bodily needs of a man and woman to be satisfied once a month. She contended that when, at Padre Pio's insistance, she tried to refuse the archpriest, he attempted to rape her.
When Prencipe heard of her signed deposition, he threatened to kill Maria DiMaggio unless she signed a retraction, which she did. The archbishop, who had defended Miscio to the hilt and refused to suspend any of his priestly faculties even after he was convicted, now came to Principe's defense, attacking Padre Pio once more for his "horrible means of hearing confessions."
During the early months of 1926, Gagliardi forwarded more anonymous letters of accusation to the new minister provincial, Padre Bernardo. Bernardo, being from outside the province of Foggia, did not know Padre Pio well enough to recognize that the accusations were false. ....
.... Regarding the hand kissing, he protested: "Anybody who has been to our church knows how many times I have shouted at them, and if they do not desist, what fault is that of mine? Do I have to strike them? Well, perhaps I would if I had good hands!"
Meanwhile complaints agaisnt Gagliardi were being voiced more persistantly, and they came not only from Padre Pio devotees. Pope Pius XI, who still esteemed the archbishop highly, created him a count of the Roman Empire and an assistant to the pontifical throne, but there were rumblings even from within the Vatican. Bishop Valbonesi frequently referred to Gagliardi in his letters as "the vile archbishop of Manfredonia" and "that peach of a bishop." There were more complaints about sodomy in the archdiocese, about "ignorant and immoral candidates for priestly office being preferred over men of character. .... A number of priests in the archdiocese sent a petition to Pius XI, asking him to turn his attention to the "disorder, immorality," and "clerical degeneracy" that prevailed. They went on to detail charges of simony (Gagliardi was allegedly willing to offer positions to anyone willing to pay enough), the appointment and protection of men found guilty in civil courts of "infamous crimes," the keeping of false financial records and the lack of accounting for the proceeds of the sale of church ornaments, and personal immorality.
Whenever Gagliardi learned of complaints against him, he would fly into a rage. Any priest who dared to "betray" him he labeled a "viper" and stripped of his priestly facilities. He tended to blame his unpopularity on Padre Pio, and in 1926 he relieved two priests of their facilities for the crime of daring to join a delegation greeting Padre Pio on his name day.
Meanwhile Brunatto made no attempt to ingratiate himself with the archbishop. Around this time he wrote a book, Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, in which he exposed the persecution of his priest-friend at the hands of the archbishop. the Holy Office promptly put it on the index of forbidden books, buying up all the copies, but not before Cardinal Gasparri had a chance to read it. He called Brunatto into his office and told him: "You've achieved your purpose. An apostolic visitation will take place and you will participate."
A visitation is an official procedure within the Roman Catholic Church for investigating a parish, diocese, or religious community .... Officially, it ahd nothing to do with Padre Pio or Gagliardi. ..... (C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.220-3)
During the night of May 5, 1929, Padre Pio had a dream to which some of his confreres attached a prophetic significance. Referring to the sixteenth-century Pope, Pius V, Padre Pio recounted, "I dreamed about St. Pius. He clearly told me that Archbishop Gagliardi will be deposed and Bishop Cuccarollo will come here in his place."
The first part of the prophecy was fulfilled October 1. Following a second apostolic visitation, this time to investigate the archbishop himself, Gagliardi, in the wake of a report that held him guilty of serious "mismanagement" of his archdiocese, retired. He returned to the village where he was born, not in disgrace but with the honorific title of archbishop of Lemnos. ....
The second part of the prophecy of St. Pius was not fulfilled, owing, Agostino rationalized, to "the fault of men." There was indeed a prelate by the name of Sebastiano Cornelio Cuccarollo, a sixty-year-old Capuchin who was currently serving as bishop of Bovino. Over the years he had been extremely favorable to Padre Pio and kept the friars informed about the unfavorable information that Gagliardi had been disseminating in Rome. When he decided that Gagliardi needed to retire, the pope asked Cuccarollo to take the archdiocese of Manfredonia. Cuccarollo, much to the disgust of Padre Pio and Padre Agostino, declined, holding out for a more lucrative assignment. "The Lord has let men do as they please, Pio observed, "but Bishop Cuccarollo will have to answer before God because he should have obeyed the Pope and submitted to his cross!"
....
.... Pio still had powerful enemies in Rome, chief among them Gemelli, who continued to cast him in unfavorable light to Pope Pius. Both Morcaldi and Brunatto were bitterly unhappy that the partial discrediting of Gagliardi had not served to remove what they felt were unreasonable restrictions on Padre Pio. Thereupon they wrote a book called Letters to the Church, which contained many a juicy expose of the private lives of prominent churchmen as well as a defense of Padre Pio. Brunatto, since his departure from the friary in 1925, had been spending most of his time shuttling between San Giovanni, Pietrelcina, and Rome. Through his contacts with Cardinal Gasparri, he was able to gain access to a great deal of privileged material. He was, of course, a persona non grata at the Vatican after it was discovered what use he was making of the materials he had uncovered.
When Padre Pio, however, learned of the forthcoming book, he seized Morcaldi by the throat. "You devil, you!" he roared. "Go, throw yourself at the foot of the Church instead of writing that garbage! Don't you set yourself up against your Mother!"
For the time being, Morcaldi and Brunatto obeyed and did not distribute Letters to the Church. Then events caused them to reconsider. It all began when the minister general of the Capuchins, Padre Melchiorre of Benisa, at the suggestion of the Holy Office, decided to replace Padre Raffaelle as guardian at San Giovanni with a man from outside the province.
On March 31, 1931, Padre Raffaele was summoned to Foggia for a private meeting with the provincial, Padre Bernardo, who informed him secretly that he would shortly be replaced by a new superior from the province of Milan. By the time he returned to San Giovanni Rotondo, however, the "secret" was public knowledge.
Apparently the resourceful Brunatto had his "spies" in the Vatican -- influential clergy loyal to him and Padre Pio -- who immediately sent word to him and to Morcaldi whenever a decision concerning Padre Pio was in the works. At any rate, the town was soon buzzing, not only with the news that a new superior was coming from the "foreign" territory of northern Italy, but with rumors that this move was the harbinger of Padre Pio's imminent transfer. Within short order, the friary was surrounded day and night by citizens armed to the teeth, just as it had been in 1923. The townsfolk guarded the friary in shifts to make sure that Padre Pio would be taken nowhere. Barricades were thrown up in the streets so that no vehicular traffic could get to or from the friary.
In the midst of this threatening situation, on the evening of April 7, a traveler arrived at Our Lady of Grace. He was Padre Eugenio Tignola, a member of the Franciscan Observants, who was returning to Naples from a preaching assignment. He arrived in San Giovanni by bus and walked up to the friary, hoping to talk to Padre Pio about a personal problem.
Unfortunately, on the same bus from Foggia was Francesco Morcaldi, who was somehow convinced that Padre Eugenio was the sinister new father guardian. Within minutes the news was all over town that the new superior had arrived and was about to spirit Padre Pio away. Soon cries were heard all over the community: "They're taking Padre Pio away!" At about 10 P.M., an ugly mob descended upon the religious house and took up the grisly and menacing chant: "To the pillory with him! To the pillory with the stranger! tear him to pieces! Tear him to Pieces!"
When Padre Raffaele refused tp hand "the stranger" over, the mob uprooted a lightpole in the courtyard and used it to smash the wooden door of the friary. Raffaelle met them as they poured into the enclosure, blocking the way to the stairway with his ample form. In an "authoritarian voice," he ordered everyone to leave the enclosure. "it was a dangerous thing to do," Raffaelle confided to his diary, "because everyone was armed." He persuaded the mob to leave the friary when he promised Padre Pio would speak to them.
so Rafaelle went to Pio's room, ordered him to go to the choir window, which overlooked the courtyard, and calmed the crowd. At the sight of his bearded face the crowd burst into wild cheers. "My blessed children," Pio began, “You have always been good. You have always conformed diligently to the grace of God. ... Now I implore you to listen to me, as you always do, and return to your homes without harming anyone. The guest who is here with me is not the man you think he is. He is a friar who has come here for purely spiritual reasons!”
"It's not true! It's not true!" howled the crowd. They insisted that Padfre Pio was being told what to say by his superiors. "What I just told you is true," Pio insisted; but when the crowd still refused to listen, Padre Pio closed the windo and returned to his room. At this point Mayor Morcaldi who had stirred up the crowd in the first place, arrived on the scene and gained entrance to the friary. After conferring with Pio and Raffaele, he himself became convinced that the stranger was in fact a harmless guest. Thus he went out before the mob and pleaded with them to disperse.
.... the crowd finally began to disperse. ...
Padre Raffaele had to report the damage done to the friary, and the police report of the incident soon reached Rome. As a result, the Holy Office took action. On June 11. 1934, Padre Raffaele received the following directive: “Padre Pio is to be stripped of all the faculties of the priestly ministry except the faculty to celebrate the Holy Mass, which he may continue to provided it is done in private, within the walls of the friary, in the inner chapel, and not publicly in church.”
.....
After vespers, ... "God's will be done," Padre Pio said. then he covered his eyes with his hands, lowered his head, and murmured, “The will of the authorities is the will of God.”
.....
When Agostino returned to San Giovanni the second day of 1932 and heard Padre Pio's confession, he asked about his friend's spiritual life. Pio told him "that often Jesus makes himself felt, speaking to his soul and granting him intellectual visions." Likewise he experienced the presence of Mary and his guardian angel.
Although he could not see them or write to them, some of Padre Pio's spiritual children claimed that he visited them through bilocation. Padre Agostino was told of such an experience by Sister Beniamina of Florence, who told him that one morning, after she had recieved Communion, Padre Pio appeared to her, comforted her, and blessed her. With this in mind, Agostino asked Pio, "do you often make trips -- like to Florence?" When Pio ignored him, Agostino added, "A nun told me this. Is it true?" "Yes," answered Pio, and that was the end of the matter.
....
In the meantime, Brunatto and Morcaldi were organizing a letter writing campaign, deluging the officials at the Vatican with pleas for the end of Padre Pio's segregation. Morcaldi sent to various prominent churchmen The Mysteries of Science in the Light of Faith, a scholarly manuscript prepared by Dr. Giorgio Festa (who had examined Pio's wounds) but which had remained unpublished because of the prohibition by the Holy Office of all publications on Padre Pio. Cardinal Gasparri, recently retired from his post as the Vatican's secretary of state, was impressed and conferred with Dr. Festa. After their conversation, Gasparri used his influence on the Holy Office, which agreed not to put the book on the index. And so Festa's book was published. It was read by several cardinals, who were favorably impressed.
Then there came a second publication that set back Padre Pio's cause. Early in 1932 Alberto Del Fante and Carolina Giovanni published Padre Pio of Pietrelcina: Messenger of the Lord. In spite of the insistence of the Holy Office that the supernatural character of Padre Pio's ministry could not be confirmed, Del Fante and Giovanni, seemingly in direct contradiction, maintained that Padre Pio was without question, a "messenger of the Lord" and included numerous accounts of supernatural phenomena.
As a result, not only was padre Pio not freed, but .... the Seraphic College was removed from San Giovanni Rotondo.
.....
Worse Morcaldi and Brunatto quarreled. Brunatto, after Festa's book had not brought a quick release of Padre Pio and after the Del Fante-Giovannini book had brought further reprisal from the Holy Office, was in favor of going ahead with the publication of Letters to the Church, Morcaldi, after conferring with several cardinals who promised Padre Pio's release only after all copies of the manuscript had been surrendered to them, urged his friend to comply with the request. Brunatto refused. "Go to your masters," he told Morcaldi, "and tell them that I still have material from which I can not only publish the book but even add to it!" Morcaldi accused his erstwhile friend of being "a second Luther," who was "trying to dismantle the Church of Christ." Brunatto said he feared no excomunication and trusted the faitful would rise en masse once he brought the "irrefutable documents to light."
The nature of these documents is not entirely known. they concerned some of the highest officials of the Church. The scandals evidently relating to sexual and financial misconduct seem to have been factual enough to make for considerable uneasiness within the Church when it was learned that they were on the verge of being brought to light. At any rate, Brunatto, from Paris, where he was now living, announced that he was ready to publish his book in french, under the title Les Antichrists dans l' eglise du Christ(or The Antichrists within the Church of Christ).
Meanwhile, Morcaldi, through more conservative means, was effecting a breakthrough. Gasparri's replacement as papal secretary of state was Eugenio Cardinal pacelli, who had been apostolic nuncio to Germany. He was tall, gaunt, and ascetic, with a white complexion and a hawklike nose; no man could possibly have been as holy as he looked. he was in fact a man of great spirituality who had been a close acquaintance of the great Bavarian mystic and stigmatic, Therese Neumann. On October 1932, Morcaldi wrote to Pacelli about "the seraphic little friar," the fame of whose "heroic virtue ... has burst the confines of the little town hidden in the mountains" Where he lived. Morcaldi described how "a humanity laden with sufferings, ... bewildered and perplexed," saw in Padre Pio a "ray of light to guide it."
Pacelli, it seems persuaded Pope Pius XI to send a personal representative to San Giovanni Rotondo to observe padre Pio. ....... The choice fell upon Monsignor Luca Pasetto and Monsignor Felice Bevilacqua, who had headed the visitation of 1927.
.... ...
The two bishops expressed their concern, both to Raffaelle and to Pio, about Brunatto. Brunatto had been writing to various Vatican officials, threatening to publish his book by Easter if Padre Pio was not free by then. Bevilacqua warned Padre Pio of the terrible damage to the Church's reputation that could ensue should Brunatto's revelations become public. "The Church has a formidable weapon to neutralize the scandal," Padre Pio offered. "Refute the episodes alleged in the book that might prove a source of scandal."
there was silence. Bevilacqua, his eyes brimming with tears, shook his head and said in a choked voice, "Unfortunatly, those allegations are true."
Padre Pio was very much alarmed at this revelation. he wrote to Brunatto in Paris, trying to dissuade him from publishing the book. Brunatto refused to listen, contending that padre Pio was being forced, under obedience to his superiors, to say what he was saying. Brunatto continued to threaten the Vatican. To various cardinals and bishops, he wrote: "The price for our silence, the price of the book, is known: the liberation of the just and the removal of the guilty."
.....
Finally on July 14, 1933, Pope Pius reversed his ban....
..... the pontiff allegedly told Archbishop Cesarano, "I have not been badly disposed towards padre pio, but I have been badly informed about him." (C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.228-35)
.... The new Pius, whom padre pio came to call "sweet Christ on earth," held the Capuchin stigmatist in great esteem. From the first, the pope encouraged the faithful to visit him. "Go ahead, it might do you some good," he often told people at audiences who, in light of decrees of the Holy Office a decade or so earlier, asked him whether a visit to Padre Pio had Papal approval. Pius seemed totally convinced of Padre Pio's holiness.
.....
..... the bane of his ministry now seemed to be the hordes of fanatical women, most of them locals, who haunted the church and were facetiously called Le Pie Donne (The Holy Women). These women lietarrly fought one another for the best spots during Padre pio's mass and for the opportunity to make their confessions to him the most convenient times, frequently directing their ire, through themeans of fingernails, hairpins, and even knives, toward "outsiders" who dared to take up the time of "their" padre Pio. (C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.238-9)
Like father Duggan, Leo Fanning asked padre Pio about the conversion of Russia, and received the reply, "Yes, Russia will be converted, as the Blessed Virgin [at Fatima is probably what he was referring to] said she would. However, Russia will teach the United States a lesson in conversion." (C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.266-7)
Padre Pio went on to say that he was nourished solely by the Eucharist. "It is the Lord who does this and not I. it is the Lord who is working in me."
Another time, Padre Pio said, "Do you want to hear my theory about it? I believe that in nature there are different organisms, ..... There are some that need a lot of nourishment .... others that with nothing give a lot of fruit. I am like a fertile field. This is my conviction. I need little."
....
.... Although Dr. Sala, who ministered to him after 1956, recalled only "normal rises" in temperature when Padre Pio was ill and no unusual fevers, Father Dominic, in September 1949, described a bout with "Sister Fever" in which his temperature was measured (by a special thermometer used by Sanguinetti) as 114 degrees.
..... Most of the people were pilgrims, who, when the church opened, would be under attack by the "Pious Ladies."
A few minutes before the church opened these ferocious groupies suddenly appeared, taking what one writer likened to a "flank position" near the head of "the enemy column." The moment the doors were opened, they would "charge the enemy ranks," and -- armed with hat pins, pocketbooks, and fingernails -- would jab, kick, and even bite their way to the front, often literally trampling their victims.
These wild women were the dismay of Padre Pio and everyone around him. don Giorgio Pogany recalled, "There were many crazy and emotionally troubled people at San Giovanni. There was a German woman who tried to take Communion five times a day. There was a girl who continually screamed, 'Long live Stalin!'" Padre Agostino would frequently post himself in the choir overlooking the church below and roar reproaches, "You uneducated ignoramuses! Don't you know you are in the House of the Lord?" All to no avail. ....
.....
Not only priests but laypersons as well had similar impressions. Joe Peterson, who frequently served his mass, recounted: "During mass you would see his eyes, very large, fixed on a particular spot. he would speak, although you couldn't hear him. You would see his lips moving. Those weren't the prescribed prayers of the mass. Everyone who was there thought that he saw Jesus and was pleading with Him for the sins of mankind. He would go into ecstasy without moving. he seemed to be in conversation with invisible beings."
.....
Pio's reactions were sometimes so extreme as to provoke a reprimand from his superior. Yet he justified his outbursts, insisting, "If we do not behave so, the people will eat us. ... they squeeze my hand in a vise, they pull my arms, they press me on every side. I feel lost. I am forced to be rude. I'm sorry, but if I don't act this way, they'll kill me." Many times he remarked, "there should be a big fence around this area with the sign, 'Lunatic Asylum.'"
Things reached an ugly pass in 1950, when a woman from Sicily attained first place in line, after a week of being pushed out of place by the Pious ladies. At this point, several women punched her and shoved her out of line again. In desperation the frantic pilgrim pulled a knife and threatened her attackers. Immediately the Pius Ladies began to scream that the Sicilian was about to kill them. Padre Pio, irate, left the confessional, demanding to know what was going on. Before the Sicilian pilgrim could say a word, the Pious Ladies told him their side of the story, with the result that the enraged priest turned on the hapless woman, and, without hearing her story or confession, ordered her to go back to Sicily.
The woman reported the incident to the provincial, who was then Padre Paolino, who in turn, pressed Father Clement Neubauer, the minister general, for permission to issue tickets for confession. At first Clement thought this smacked more of theater than the Church but was persuaded that the violence around Padre Pio's confessional made this a necessity. Thereafter, all those wishing to make their confession to Padre Pio had to register in person. People from out of town were given tickets of a different color from those issued to locals. Two lines were formed, one for locals, the other for pilgrims. To guard against the black market, each ticket had to be signed in person in front of a priest by the person to whom it was issued. The priest who issued the ticket had to sign and date it.
Only those fluent in Italian were allowed to approach Padre Pio. It was widely believed that the Padre had the "gift of languages" so that an American or Russian (who spoke no Italian), for instance, could miraculously understand him and be understood. That this was occasionally the case cannot be denied. During the late 1920s, Maria Pyle urged her sister-in-law Zene to make her confession to Padre Pio. "Now, Adelia, you know I don't speak Italian," Zene protested. Maria told her not to worry and Zene went to confession. "I spoke in English and he spoke in Italian and we understood each other perfectly. I came out looking rather dazed," Zene recounted. .... (C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.290-5)
There is no question that Padre Pio believed that he visited his spiritual children through bilocation (or "astro-projection," as the phenomenon is sometimes called). Although he was certainly willing, at times, to admit that he had visited a given individual in this manner, he never seems to have taken the pains to explain the phenomenon. At what age was he first gifted with the grace? How much control did he have? Only occassionally did a few of his confreres question him. Once Padre Eusebio Notte, speaking of a mutual acquaintance, asked. "Padre Pio, you know that man's house in Rome, don't you?" Pio responded: "Me? How could I know it when I haven't been away from the friary for ever so many years?" When Eusebio persisted, "But, Padre, this man says you went to his house and that he saw you," Pio responded, "Ah, but that is a different matter. When these things occur ... the Lord only permits the person concerned to be seen, not the surroundings." Once, when someone asked cautiously if those who experience the phenomenon of bilocation know where they are going and what they are doing, Pio replied, "Certainly they know. Perhaps they don't know whether it is the body or the soul that moves, but they are fully conscious of what is happening, and they know where they are going." Another time he said that bilocation was an "extension of body and soul" and that he sometimes went "with body and soul," but on other occasions, his angel assumed his bodily form and voice. He told Padre Alessio, "I know only that it is God who sends me. I do not know whether I am there with my soul or body, or both of them."
Padre Pio, evidently, was never interested in analyzing the phenomenon. He was interested only in doing God's will. "Whether it's true or not that I am found in various places by bilocation, trilocation, or whatever," he told a confrere, "you must ask God and not me. All I can tell you is that I always try to remain attached to the thread of his will. For this reason, I am always where I am."
There was one question about bilocation that Padre Pio could and would answer clearly and directly. Asked what language he employed in his "travels," he replied, "Italian. And how many miracles would you want the Lord to perform?" (C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.329)
Then, in April 1959, Pio took to his bed with what physicians diagnosed as bronchial pneumonia. A month later he was still bedridden, unable to celebrate Mass or hear confessions, and now the physicians decided that he had pleurisy. Three times during May, they extracted more than a quart of bloody serum from his pleural cavity without obtaining relief. The father guardian, Padre Carmelo, summoned a team of specialists, who, after making tests, diagnosed "a pleural neoplasm [tumor] with bloody exudations," recommending chemotherapy. They were puzzled when, having solemnly informed the sick man that he had cancer and could expect to die within a matter of months, he burst out laughing and told them that not only did he not have cancer, but they did not know what they were talking about. To the amazement of the specialists, Dr. Sala, who had been Pio's personal physician for three years, agreed with him, declared that his patient was suffering from nothing more than "a pleural inflammation super-imposed on a chronic bronchial catarrh," and rejected the option of chemotherapy.
Yet Pio grew no better. Every day, by means of a loudspeaker installed in his sickroom, he listened to the services and addressed a few words to the faithful through a microphone.
On July 1, the new church was consecrated. On that day, informed by his doctors that he could resume some of his usual activities, he dragged himself to the chapel of the Casa to celebrate Mass for the patients there. When Mass was finished, he was so weak and in such pain that he had to be admitted to the hospital, where more fluid was removed from his chest. Two days later he insisted on returning to the friary, and was taken back by stretcher.
When it became known in the Vatican circles that Padre Pio was deathly ill, the papal secretary of state, for some reason, decided to become involved. It seems as if he insisted that Pio return to the hospital for treatment. This distressed the sick man, who wanted to die at the friary but indicated that, if Rome insisted, he would obey. Dr. Sala and Padre Pio's superiors interceded and secured the agreement of the Vatican for him to remain at the friary.
On August 5, a statue known as the Pilgrim Madonna was brought from its home in Fatima, Portugal, where it represented the celebrated apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary to three local children in 1917. the image was brought to San Giovanni by helicopter, and for a day the faithful gathered in prayer and devotion before it. On the afternoon of August 6, the statue, before being taken through the wards of the Casa, was placed in the sacristy of the old church. Padre Pio had himself carried there on a chair. His eyes filled with tears, he leaned forward and kissed the statue and draped a golden rosary around it. Then, breathless and in pain, he was carried back to bed.
As the helicopter bearing the statue lifted off from the heliport at the Casa, Padre Pio insisted on being carried to the choir of the new church, where he could hear the crowds crying, "Viva! Viva!" and see the helicopter rise to circle the friary three times in a gesture of farewell to him. Seeing the statue airborne, he prayed aloud, "Dear Mother, ever since you came to Italy, I have been laid low with sickness. Now that you're leaving, aren't you going to even say one word to me?"
In the twinkling of an eye, the Capuchin stigmatist felt a "mysterious force" surge through his body. Those with him saw him shudder, from head to toe, as he leaped from his chair, shouting, "I'm healed!" Within two weeks he had resumed all his duties and did not hesitate to declare that he had been miraculously delivered by the intercession of the Virgin Mary. When a doctor disputed this, claiming that the pleurisy had already cleared up and that he was well on his way to recovery at the time, Pio replied, "I know that I was still sick and that I felt extremely bad. I prayed to the Madonna and the Madonna healed me. If people don't want to believe this, then let them put the Madonna on trial. It was she who healed me." And so, Padre Pio was restored to his ministry. (C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.349-50)
Although he continued to fear attacks by devils, he was consoled by heavenly manifestations. Padre Alessio recalled, "I saw Padre Pio in ecstasy, complely absorbed. He was in a different world. His face was beautiful. Many times in the after noon I would go to his room, open the door, and find him beautiful like this. ... I would say, 'Father, it's time to go down for your confessions,' and he would become normal."
..... "I beg to see that my writings, which I sent to my Spiritual Father or priests who have guided me spiritually, are not published. I kiss your hand and beg your holy blessing." The editors of the paper, who knew that Pio and his superiors would never sue, ignored their request and continued the series.
.... "I am reduced to a state of helplessness," he lamented. "May the Lord call me now because I am no longer permitted to be of any use to my brethren." ...
......
By now the stigmata were disappearing. for more than a year they had disappeared from his feet, although his feet hurt so intensely that it proved a veritable martyrdom when one of his assistants put on his socks and sandals. the wound in the side no longer bled, and, by the spring of 1968, the stigmata on the hands were vanishing. By summer there were now only scabs, with just a touch of redness. One of his attendants, Padre Onorato, recognized this as a sign of approaching death, "the ministry was finished, so the signs were finished." (C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.371-2)
.... There was no autopsy. Ten minutes after Pio's death one of the friars, who discovered that he had a few black-and-white exposures in his camera, photographed the hands, feet, and side of the cadaver. There were no signs whatsoever of any wounds -- no scars, no indentations, no discolorations. ....... It was decided to cover the hands lest the lack of stigmata confuse those that viewed the corpse.
......
.... During this interval, the body was injected with Formalin to arrest the process of decomposition and placed in a closed steel casket with a glass top, to prevent dismemberment by the fanatical. ... (C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.377)
Padre Pio 35-72 (’22-’59)
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For the first time in anyone’s memory, he did not attempt to hide his hands at any point in the service. To the amazement of everyone there, there was no trace of any wound. (C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.) Padre Pio: Wonderworker or Charlatan? Joe Nickell Fall 2008
EWTN Padre Pio: Biography
(C. Bernard Ruffin "Padre Pio: The True Story" 1991 p.)
Your excellency, not so far as I’m aware. There have certainly been rash acts on the part of people who have named me in connection with things I would never dream to talk about or to make known. It’s enough to make a person crazy and I have to thank the lord that the greatest grace he’s blessed me with has been, in fact, that I haven’t lost my reason or my health for all the nonsense that has occurred. (Padre Pio: Miracles and Politics in a Secular Age By Sergio Luzzatto p.102)
Padre Pio, dear Papini, is a sickly, ignorant Capuchin, very much the crude southerner. And yet (bear in mind that besides making confession to him, I also dined with him and we spent a great deal of time together), and yet— God is with him, that fearful God that we glimpse in revery and which he has in his soul, unbearably hot, and in his flesh, which trembles constantly . . . as if battered by ever more powerful gales. I truly saw the holy there, holiness not of action but of passion, the holiness that God expresses. Although he is a man of very meager intelligence, he offered me two or three words that I have never found on the lips of other men, and not even (and this is harder to admit) in the books of the Church. . . . There is nothing of ordinary spirituality about him, nor is there anything extraordinarily miraculous, stunning, or showy; there is merely intelligentia spiritualis, a free gift from God. And there is a passion, even a human passion, for God, dear Papini, that is so beautiful, so ravishingly sweet that I can’t tell you. The love of woman and the love of ideas are nothing by comparison, they are things that do not go beyond a certain point, whether near or far. While the love of God, how, I do not know, burns, and the more it burns the more it finds to burn. I have the absolutely certain sensation that God and man have met in this person. (Padre Pio: Miracles and Politics in a Secular Age By Sergio Luzzatto p.180-2)
DISMANTLING THE CROSS A CALL FOR RENEWED EMPHASIS ON THE CELIBATE VOCATION by Patricia Snow April 2015
Friday BookReview: PADRE PIO (d. 1968) [first published May 29, 2015]
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