Saint Pio of Pietrelcina: How God works wonders through "a poor brother who prays"

Padre Pio, in his own words "a poor brother who prays", is among the greatest saints. He was favored with mystical graces from childhood, but was also often violently attacked by the devil, a struggle that lasted throughout his life. He joined the Capuchins in 1903 and was ordained in 1910. His life, punctuated by inexplicable phenomena that were investigated and recognised as authentic, was marked by great charity. The hospital he managed to build before his death on September 23, 1968, despite a host of obstacles, is proof of it. The ceremony of Padre Pio's canonisation in 2002 by John Paul II brought together 150,000 faithful in St Peter's Square in Rome.

Padre Pio among the faithful / © CC0/wikimedia

Reasons to believe:

The Passion wounds received by Padre Pio, initially the subject of controversy, were rigorously analysed and authenticated as supernatural, notably by Doctor Festa on October 10, 1919: they were not the fruit of the monk's imagination, and were not caused by self-mutilation. The doctor emphasised that the wounds never changed over time, and that they did not fester or become infected, as a natural wound would.

An incredible feature of these stigmata is that they mysteriously disappeared just moments before the celebration of Padre Pio's last Mass, on September 22, 1968. One of the doctors called to Padre Pio's bedside that day declared that it was "an occurrence outside any type of clinical behaviour, and of an extra-natural nature".

To this day, there is no scientific explanation for the recurring diabolical attacks meant to hurt or intimidate him (objects moving by themselves, bed overturned, unusual noises, blows to the face and body, etc.).

Padre Pio's bilocations, all of which had a spiritual purpose, have been attested beyond doubt. Numerous testimonies demonstrate his presence in two places at the same time: he intervened miles away from his monastery while remaining in his cell praying. For example, he prevented the suicide of an Italian officer during the war.

The cures recorded during his lifetime and after his death through his intercession - often from incurable illnesses diagnosed by doctors in great detail - are fully attested. For his canonisation, 73 testimonies of healings obtained through his prayers were collected, and recorded in 104 volumes.

Many of his prophecies came true, such as the one in 1947 when he told a young Polish student named Karol Wojtyla that he would one day be Pope.

In 1963 alone, more than 100,000 people signed up to go to confession to him. Padre Pio used his gift of reading souls to help penitents: many of them testified to the radical change they experienced in confession with Padre Pio, who read their souls.

Padre Pio's monastery received an enormous number of gifts. None of them went to him personally, but all were used to build a hospital that currently treats almost 60,000 people every year. It is clear that Padre Pio was not acting out of self-interest.

Exposed to the veneration of the faithful in the crypt of San Giovanni Rotondo (Puglia, Italy), the body of Saint Padre Pio has remained incorrupt for 55 years.

During his life and for half a century, huge crowds visited the saint, without anyone - clergy, doctors, theologians, political authorities or scientists - ever detecting any duplicity or deception on Padre Pio's part. But the monk's popularity was problematic and he was subjected to a great deal of scrutiny.

The observed phenomena (stigmata, extraordinary perfumes, visions, locutions, the gift of clairvoyance, bilocations, etc.) were never senseless prodigies: all of them, without exception, were signs and instruments at the service of the Gospel, in perfect coherence with the teaching of the Church.

Padre Pio's view of the experiences he had was entirely consistent with that of the Church. In his eyes, they remained secondary, marginal and subordinate to what is essential: the love of Christ.

Despite the disciplinary measures imposed on him from 1922 to 1964, the future saint remained totally obedient to his direct superiors and to the ecclesiastical hierarchy as a whole.

Summary:

Francisco Forgione was born in 1887 in Pietrelcina, an Italian village near Benevento in Campania, south of Rome. The fourth child of Grazio Forgione and Maria Giuseppa Di Nunzio, modest farm workers, he grew up outside, but his health was fragile: the child was prone to disturbed sleep and bouts of fever made him unusually tired. He loved solitude, nature and contemplation. His father thought he was not cut out to be a farmer, given his physical frailty. This realisation was providential: he dreamt of becoming a religious and join the Capuchins.

After his father left for America, his mother entrusted him to the care of a priest uncle, Don Pannullo. This priest obtained his admission to the Capuchins in Morcone (Italy). On January 22, 1903, after saying goodbye to his family, the young man entered the monastery. From this time onwards, Br. Pio received mystical graces. He had three visions before he even embraced religious life. The first bilocations occurred. These phenomena never prevented him from fulfilling his religious duties and participating in community life. On the contrary, he was an excellent religious, and his brothers had great esteem for him and served him as he served them in faith and detachment.

Daily life was hard: discomfort, lack of conveniences, the rare journeys made by donkey or cart; food was frugal and sleep was interrupted every night by the liturgy of the hours. Strangely enough, his poor health resisted this kind of life. He just wanted to live live the kind of life Jesus of Nazareth had.

After passing his exams, he took his final vows on January 27, 1907. This was the beginning of a strange period for him, full of extraordinary phenomena, but also of suffering and contradictions. First of all, he suffered from a variety of ailments. A bronchoalveolitis in his left lung forced him to leave the monastery temporarily (but for almost a whole year) to receive appropriate treatment. Then the doctors authorised him to return to the cloister. He was soon ordained a sub-deacon. But he suffered a relapse six months later, forcing him to return to his family for several months. One of his teachers, Father Bernardino, said of him that he stood out not by his intelligence but by his humility, gentleness and obedience.

Then, the devil's attacks became stronger. They were of two kinds: internal (temptations to abandon the contemplative life, to hate the clergy, etc.), and external: objects moving by themselves, an inkwell thrown against a wall of his cell, an overturned bed, unusual noises whose source was indefinable, blows to the face and body, causing bruising and haemorrhaging, etc. These manifestations are surprising, of course, but they are fairly common among the saints.

Some of the facts are chilling: several of the saint's letters to his superiors were found blank, full of erasures or ink stains. One day he received a visit from his spiritual director, Father Agostino da San Marco in Lamis, in his room in Pietrelcina. The visit surprised the young Capuchin, as the priest was not in the habit of coming to him unannounced. Immediately, the visitor tried to persuade him to give up the religious life, on the pretext that his austerities exceeded his natural capacities; finally, he explained to him that his extraordinary phenomena were the fruit of his unbridled psychology... Surprised, Brother Pio asked Christ to enlighten him. A moment later, he suggested that his visitor pray to the Holy Name of Jesus: "Long live Jesus!" At these words, the "visiting priest" literally disappeared in an instant.

On August 10, 1910, he was ordained a priest in Benevento Cathedral. After a few hours spent with his family, the devil, whom he nicknamed "Bluebeard", or the "Mustachian", attacked again. This time, the young Capuchin was the victim of various temptations and obsessions, day and night. His correspondence at the time mentions external manifestations identical to those experienced by great saints over the centuries, from Saint Anthony of Egypt (d. 356) to the holy Curé of Ars (d. 1859).

At the same time, he became closer to God every day, through prayer, asceticism and self-abasement. Although he had never received any in-depth teaching on the subject, his capacity for discernment left him speechless: "These heavenly favours produced in me [...] these three results: a knowledge of God, of his incredible greatness; a great knowledge of myself and a profound feeling of humility."

Some people thought Padre Pio's stigmata were a figment of his imagination or an act of self-mutilation. In either case, this is baseless. On the one hand, his psychology shows no signs of morbidity or pain. He was a perfectly balanced man, as attested by the many medical reports drawn up from 1919 onwards. On October 10, 1919, Doctor Festa examined Brother Pio and concluded that the stigmata had a non-natural origin. He visited Brother Pio until 1925, stating that the wounds had never changed over time and, what's more, did not fester or become infected like any natural wound. On the other hand, the clinical evolution of the wounds, far from being unpredictable, followed a particular pattern: they only opened on September 20, 1918, the date on which he joined the monastery of San Giovanni Rotondo, having been declared unfit for military service for health reasons; and they did not disappear until September 22, 1968, during the celebration of his last mass - something that the religious realised shortly afterwards. One of the doctors called to his bedside that day declared that it was "something outside of all types of clinical behaviour, and of an extra-natural nature".

After Padre Pio arrived at the monastery of San Giovanni Rotondo, things began to slowly change: although the saint hid the wounds on his hands with mittens, the news of his stigmatisation spread fast around the region, and soon hundreds of the faithful were flocking to the place to see, hear and touch the holy monk.

As usually happens when God makes himself present in a powerful way, the devil redoubled his attacks - thousands of saints' lives bear witness to this. A rumour arose calling into question Padre Pio's good faith and morality. Local officials were upset by the disturbance caused by the spontaneous pilgrimage around the convent. The local and then the national press got involved. Reluctantly, the saint became a celebrity. A postal sorting service was set up in the community, as so many letters reached the convent. Here and there, people began trying to steal an object, a piece of clothing belonging to him, even beard hairs... Later, a slanderous rumour spread and reached the Holy Office alleging that the Capuchins were fighting to get their hands on the donations collected by the saint! On October 14, 1920, violent clashes in San Giovanni Rotondo between socialists and fascists left 14 people dead. Some blamed Padre Pio, "the obscurantist monk", without reason.

In a bid to put a stop to these "disturbances", the police, aided by some of the clergy, took radical measures: the saint would have to say mass in a private place and would no longer be able to hear confessions. This was the beginning of a long and terrible isolation that Padre Pio endured with superhuman serenity: no one ever heard him say a negative word about anyone. In any case, it was too late: the "vox populi" had recognised the sanctity of the humble monk. On June 25, 1923, despite the bans in force, 5,000 people demonstrated outside the monastery to demand that the sanctions be lifted. Little by little, the situation was providentially reversed: the saint's main detractors were in turn accused of lies and false testimony. In the spring of 1934, Padre Pio regained the right to hear confessions.

Another affair soon cast a shadow over the saint's life. Hundreds of thousands of faithful sent donations to the monastery. Of course, because of his vow of poverty, the saint did not have access to this money. But some accused him of enriching himself through popular credulity. In reality, these funds were set aside for the construction of a hospital equipped with cutting-edge technology, envisioned by Padre Pio. The major works were completed in December 1949. The building was inaugurated on May 5, 1956. It is a state of the art medical complex, with all specialities represented.

Brother Pio was 70 years old. His popularity and reputation could have led people to believe that his life would be peaceful from then on. On the contrary, serious but unfounded accusations once again reached the Roman Curia. Padre Pio once again had to retire from public life. The man suffered, but the Christian entrusted himself body and soul to providence. He showed perfect obedience.

In the summer of 1959, his mail was systematically opened. Microphones were installed in the places where he confessed. The surveillance lasted four months. Women confessing to him were never allowed to stay with him after the sacrament, and men were only allowed in the monastery church. In April 1961, it was stipulated that his Mass must not exceed 40 minutes, otherwise it would be timed!

The saint prayed even more earnestly, confiding in God and in the Virgin Mary, who appeared to him. On August 10, 1960, he celebrated the jubilee of his ordination. In such circumstances, he expected to celebrate in solitude. That day, 20,000 people flocked to San Giovanni Rotondo and 70 Italian bishops sent him a message of congratulations, including a certain Mgr Montini, the future Saint Paul VI. From December 1962 (the first session of the Second Vatican Council), dozens of bishops staying in Rome visited him. God was faithful: on January 30 ,1964, Cardinal Ottaviani informed the Capuchins that Pope Paul VI intended to restore full freedom to the humble Capuchin. In 1967 alone, 25,000 people went to confession to him.

The last two years of his life were physically exhausting but he did not abandon any of his duties. He celebrated his daily mass, which was attended right up to the end by a great number of faithful. His death on September 23, 1968, caused a wave of emotion in Italy and beyond. Countless people travelled to San Giovanni Rotondo to pay their last respects to the humble Capuchin.

Beatified on May 2, 1999, Saint John Paul II canonized him on June 16, 2002.

Patrick Sbalchiero

Beyond reasons to believe:

Padre Pio's fortitude and patience amisdt trials, his unwavering attachment to Christ, his common sense and his charity beyond measure make him an extraordinary man, but above all he is an example of what God's grace can operate in a heart fully opened and given to God.

Going further:

Padre Pio: The True Story by C. Bernard Ruffin, Our Sunday Visitor; 3rd ed. edition (September 21, 2018)

More information:

Padre Pio: Stories and Memories of My Mentor and Friend, by Fr. Gabriele Amorth, Ignatius Press (August 16, 2021)
National Center for Padre Pio' website, page "The Saint of the New Millenium"
Documentary video "Padre Pio, the Story of a Saint"
Padre Pio 2022 film directed by Abel Ferrara