Padre Pio
Pio of Pietrelcina (May 25, 1887 – September 23, 1968), also known as Saint Padre Pio, or simply Padre Pio, was a Capuchin priest from Italy who is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church. He was born Francesco Forgione, and given the name Pio when he joined the Capuchins; he was popularly known as Padre Pio after his ordination to the priesthood.
He became famous for his stigmata.
Early life
Francesco Forgione was born to Grazio Mario Forgione (1860–1946) and Maria Giuseppa de Nunzio Forgione (1859–1929) on May 25, 1887, in Pietrelcina, a farming town in the southern Italian region of Campania. His parents made a living as peasant farmers. He was baptized in the nearby Santa Anna Chapel, which stands upon the walls of a castle. He later served as an altar boy in this same chapel. Restoration work on this chapel was later undertaken by the Padre Pio Foundation of America based in Cromwell, Connecticut. His siblings were an older brother, Michele, and three younger sisters, Felicita, Pellegrina, and Grazia (who was later to become a Bridgettine nun). His parents had two other children who died in infancy. When he was baptised, he was given the name Francesco, which was the name of one of these two. He claimed that by the time he was five years old he had already taken the decision to dedicate his entire life to God. He is also said to have begun inflicting penances on himself and to have been chided on one occasion by his mother for using a stone as a pillow and sleeping on the stone floor. He worked on the land up to the age of 10, looking after the small flock of sheep the family owned. This delayed his education to some extent.
Pietrelcina was a highly religious town (feast days of saints were celebrated throughout the year), and religion had a profound influence on the Forgione family.
The members of the family attended daily Mass, prayed the Rosary nightly, and abstained from meat three days a week in honor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Although Francesco's parents and grandparents were illiterate; they memorised the Scriptures and narrated Bible stories to their children. It is claimed by his mother that Francesco was able to see and speak with Jesus, the Virgin Mary and his guardian angel, and that as a child, he assumed that all people could do so.
As a youth Pio claimed to have experienced heavenly visions and ecstasies. In 1897, after he had completed three years at the public school, Francesco was drawn to the life of a friar after listening to a young Capuchin friar who was, at that time, seeking donations in the countryside.
On January 6, 1903, at the age of 15, he entered the novitiate of the Capuchin Friars at Morcone where, on January 22, he took the Franciscan habit and the name of Fra (Brother) Pio in honor of Pope Saint Pius V, the patron saint of Pietrelcina. He took the simple vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.
Priesthood
To commence his six-year study for priesthood and to grow in community life, he travelled to the friary of St. Francis of Assisi by oxcart. Three years later on January 27, 1907, he made his solemn profession.
Four days later, he offered his first Mass at the parish church of Our Lady of the Angels. His health being precarious, he was permitted to remain with his family until early 1916 while still retaining the Capuchin habit.
On September 4, 1916, Padre Pio was ordered to return to his community life.
Thus he was moved to an agricultural community, Our Lady of Grace Capuchin Friary, located in the Gargano Mountains in San Giovanni Rotondo. He had five rules for spiritual growth, namely, weekly confession, daily Communion, spiritual reading, meditation, and examination of conscience.
He compared weekly confession to dusting a room weekly, and recommended the performance of meditation and self-examination twice daily: once in the morning, as preparation to face the day, and once again in the evening, as retrospection.
His advice on the practical application of theology he often summed up in his now famous quote, "Pray, Hope and Don’t Worry". At six he suffered from a grave gastroenteritis, which kept him bedridden for a long time.
At 17, he suddenly fell ill, complaining of loss of appetite, insomnia, exhaustion, fainting spells, and terrible migraines. According to their stories, one could hear strange noises coming from his room at night - sometimes screams or roars.
During prayer, brother Pio remained in a stupor, as if he were absent.
One of Pio's fellow brothers claims to have seen him in ecstasy, levitating above the ground.
June 1905, brother Pio's health was so weak that his superiors decided to send him to a mountain convent, in the hope that the change of air would do him some good. He also suffered from a chronic gastritis, which later turned into an ulcer.
But after 30 days he was sent home on leave due to bad health. He returned to military service, and was put on leave again, this time for six months at a convent in a mountain village, San Giovanni Rotondo, where the weather was relatively cool even in the summer.
After six months in this convent he returned to military service, but was sent home again two months later. He was then sent home on permanent leave.
In 1925, Padre Pio was operated on for an inguinal hernia, and shortly after this a large cyst formed on his neck which had to be surgically removed.
Another surgery was required to remove a malignant tumor on his ear. After this operation Padre Pio was subjected to radiological treatment, which was successful, it seems, after only two treatments.
In 1956, he came down with a serious case of "exudative pleuritis".
The diagnosis was certified by professor Cataldo Cassano, who personally extracted the serous liquid from the body of Padre Pio. He remained bedridden for four consecutive months.
In his old age Padre Pio was tormented by arthritis.
Spiritual suffering
Padre Pio believed that the love of God was inseparable from suffering and that suffering all things for the sake of God was the way for the soul to reach God. He felt that his soul was lost in a chaotic maze, plunged into total desolation, as if he were in the deepest pit of hell.
During his period of spiritual suffering, his followers believe that Padre Pio was attacked by the Devil, both physically and spiritually. His followers also believe that the Devil used diabolical tricks in order to increase Padre Pio's torments. These included apparitions as an "angel of light" and the alteration or destruction of letters to and from his spiritual directors.
Padre Augustine confirmed this when he said:
The Devil appeared as young girls that danced naked with out any clothes on, as a crucifix, as a young friend of the monks, as the Spiritual Father or as the Provincial Father; as Pope Pius X, a Guardian Angel, as St. Francis and as Our Lady.
Now, twenty-two days have passed, since Jesus allowed the devils to vent their anger on me.
Gabriele Amorth, senior exorcist of Vatican City stated in an interview that Padre Pio was able to distinguish between real apparitions of Jesus, Mary and the Saints and the illusions created by the Devil by carefully analysing the state of his mind and the feelings produced in him during the apparitions. Francis were always with him and helped him always.
Transverberation and visible stigmata
Based on Padre Pio's correspondence, even early in his priesthood he experienced less obvious indications of the visible stigmata for which he would later become famous. In a 1911 letter, Padre Pio wrote to his spiritual advisor, Padre Benedetto from San Marco in Lamis, describing something he had been experiencing for a year:
Then last night something happened which I can neither explain nor understand.
The pain was more pronounced in the middle of the left hand, so much so that I can still feel it. He did not wish the pain to be removed, only the visible wounds, since, at the time he considered them to be an indescribable and almost unbearable humiliation. The visible wounds disappeared at that point, but reappeared in September 1918. He reported, however, that the pain remained and was more acute on specific days and under certain circumstances.
He also said that he was indeed experiencing the pain of the crown of thorns and the scourging. This leaves the soul wounded, which causes it to suffer from the overflowing of divine love.
World War I was still going on, and in the month of July 1918, Pope Benedict XV, who had termed the World War as "the suicide of Europe", appealed to all Christians urging them to pray for an end to the World War.
This occurrence is considered as a "transverberation" or piercing of the heart indicating the union of love with God.
As a side-note, a first-class relic of Padre Pio, which consists of a large framed square of linen bearing a bloodstain from "the wound of the transverberation of the heart" in Padre Pio's side is exposed for public veneration at the St. John Cantius Church in Chicago.
With his transverberation began another seven-week long period of spiritual unrest for Padre Pio.
He was constantly weeping and sighing, saying that God had forsaken him.
In a letter from Padre Pio to Padre Benedetto, dated August 21, 1918, Padre Pio writes of his experiences during the transverberation:
While I was hearing the boys’ confessions on the evening of the 5th I was suddenly terrorized by the sight of a celestial person who presented himself to my mind’s eye. He had in his hand a sort of weapon like a very long sharp-pointed steel blade which seemed to emit fire.
At the very instant that I saw all this, I saw that person hurl the weapon into my soul with all his might. I asked the boy to leave because I felt ill and no longer had the strength to continue.
I cannot tell you how much I suffered during this period of anguish. I feel in the depths of my soul a wound that is always open and which causes me continual agony.
On September 20, 1918, accounts state that the pains of the transverberation had ceased and Padre Pio was in "profound peace". On that day, as Padre Pio was engaged in prayer in the choir loft in the Church of Our Lady of Grace, the same Being who had appeared to him and given him the transverberation, and who is believed to be the Wounded Christ, appeared again and Padre Pio had another experience of religious ecstasy. When the ecstasy ended, Padre Pio had received the Visible Stigmata, the five wounds of Christ.
Padre Pio to Padre Benedetto, his superior and spiritual advisor, Padre Benedetto from San Marco in Lamis dated October 22, 1918, Padre Pio describes his experience of receiving the Stigmata as follows:
On the morning of the 20th of last month, in the choir, after I had celebrated Mass I yielded to a drowsiness similar to a sweet sleep. Imagine the agony I experienced and continue to experience almost every day.
Padre Pio’s wounds were examined by many people, including physicians. People who had started rebuilding their lives after World War I began to see in Padre Pio a symbol of hope. Those close to him attest that he began to manifest several spiritual gifts including the gifts of healing, bilocation, levitation, prophecy, miracles, extraordinary abstinence from both sleep and nourishment (One account states that Padre Agostino recorded one instance in which Padre Pio was able to subsist for at least 20 days at Verafeno on only the Eucharist without any other nourishment), the ability to read hearts, the gift of tongues, the gift of conversions, and the fragrance from his wounds.
Controversies
Nature of the charges
His accusers brought several accusations against him, including insanity, immoral attitude towards women - claims that he had intercourse with women in the confessional; misuse of funds, and deception - claims that the stigmata were induced with acid in order to gain fame, and that the reported odor of sanctity around him being the result of self-administered eau-de-cologne.
The founder of Milan's Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, friar, physician and psychologist Agostino Gemelli, concluded Padre Pio was "an ignorant and self-mutilating psychopath who exploited people's credulity." In short, he was accused of infractions against all three of his monastic vows: poverty, chastity and obedience.
In 1923, he was forbidden to teach teenage boys in the school attached to the monastery because he was considered "a noxious Socrates, capable of perverting the fragile lives and souls of boys."
Home to Relieve Suffering
In 1940, Padre Pio began plans to open a hospital in San Giovanni Rotondo, to be named the Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza or "Home to Relieve Suffering"; the hospital opened in 1956. Barbara Ward, a British humanitarian and journalist on assignment in Italy, played a major role in obtaining for this project a grant of $325,000 from the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). In order that Padre Pio might directly supervise this project, Pope Pius XII, in 1957 granted him dispensation from his vow of poverty. Padre Pio's detractors used this project as another weapon to attack him, charging him with misappropriation of funds.
Investigations
Padre Pio was subject to numerous investigations. Fearing local riots, a plan to transfer Padre Pio to another friary was dropped and a second plan was aborted when a riot almost happened. In the period from 1924 to 1931 the Holy See made various statements denying that the happenings in the life of Padre Pio were due to any divine cause. At one point, he was prevented from publicly performing his priestly duties, such as hearing confessions and saying Mass.
Papal views on the situation in the 1930s to 1960s
By 1933, the tide began to turn, with Pope Pius XI ordering the Holy See to reverse its ban on Padre Pio’s public celebration of Mass.
Due to Padre Pio's advanced age and deteriorating health, Pope Paul VI granted Padre Pio special permission to continue saying the Traditional Latin Mass following the institution of certain liturgical changes following the Second Vatican Council. On September 21, 1968, the day after the 50th anniversary of his receiving the Stigmata, Padre Pio experienced great tiredness. The next day, on September 22, 1968, Padre Pio was supposed to offer a Solemn High Mass, but feeling weak and fearing that he might be too ill to complete the Mass, he asked his superior if he might say a Low Mass instead, just as he had done daily for years. This would be Padre Pio's last celebration of the Mass.
Early in the morning of September 23, 1968, Padre Pio made his last confession and renewed his Franciscan vows. As was customary, he had his rosary in his hands, though he did not have the strength to say the Hail Marys aloud. Till the end, he repeated the words "Gesù, Maria" (Jesus, Mary).
He was often heard to say, "After my death I will do more. Only a red mark "as if drawn by a red pencil" remained on his side which then disappeared.
Posthumous controversies
Town commercialization
The commercialization of the monastery town, San Giovanni Rotondo, has been criticized: "Alessandro Maggiolini, Bishop of Como and an eminent theologian, spoke out [the day before St.
"Jesus Christ chased out the merchants from the temple, but I see now that they have returned," he said in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica".
Supernatural phenomena
Padre Pio during the celebration of the Latin Mass, turning toward the people for the Dominus Vobiscum. Note the coverings worn on his hands to cover his stigmata.
Padre Pio acquired fame as a worker, and was purported to have the gift of reading souls.
Austrian Cardinal Alfons Stickler reported that Wojtyła confided to him that during this meeting Padre Pio told him he would one day ascend to "the highest post in the Church." Cardinal Stickler further went on to say that Wojtyła believed that the prophecy was fulfilled when he became a Cardinal, not Pope, as has been reported in works of piety. (John Paul's secretary, Stanisław Dziwisz, denies the prediction,, while George Weigel's biography Witness to Hope, which contains an account of the same visit, does not mention it)
Bishop Wojtyła wrote to Padre Pio in 1962 to ask him to pray for Dr. However, the Church has since formally approved his veneration with his canonization by Pope John Paul II in 2002.
In the 1999 book, Padre Pio: The Wonder Worker, a segment by Irish priest Malachy Gerard Carroll describes the story of Gemma de Giorgi, a Sicilian girl whose alleged blindness some believe was corrected during a visit to the Capuchin priest. Gemma, who was brought to San Giovanni Rotondo in 1947 by her grandmother, was born without pupils. During her trip to see Padre Pio, the little girl reportedly began to see objects including a steamboat and the sea. Gemma's grandmother did not believe the child had been healed. After Gemma forgot to ask Padre Pio for Grace during her Confession, her grandmother reportedly implored the priest to ask God to restore her sight. Padre Pio, according to Carroll, told her, "The child must not weep and neither must you for the child sees and you know she sees." The section goes on to say that oculists were unable to determine how she gained vision. Padre Pio is alleged to have waged physical combat with Satan, similar to incidents described concerning St.
He is also said to have possessed the ability to communicate with guardian angels, often granting favors and healings prior to any written or verbal request.
Stigmata
Padre Pio showing the stigmata
On September 20, 1918, while hearing confessions, Padre Pio is said to have had his first occurrence of the stigmata—bodily marks, pain, and bleeding in locations corresponding to the crucifixion wounds of Jesus Christ. A 2006 survey by the magazine Famiglia Cristiana found that more Italian Catholics pray to Padre Pio than to any other figure.
The project will cost several million pounds, with the money to be raised from his devotees around the world. Exhumation
The incorrupt body of Saint Pio of Pietrelcina wearing a silicone mask.
On March 3, 2008, the body of Saint Pio was exhumed from his crypt, 40 years after his death, so that his remains could be prepared for display.
http:www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/24/wpio124.xml.