The Stigmata of Padre Pio (1918-1968)

Di Flumeri himself distinguishes two periods in the history of the stigmata of Padre Pio:

"In the long history of the stigmatisation of Padre Pio, two periods must be distinguished: one of preparation for the great phenomenon, which lasted eight years (September 1910 - September 1918), the other, that of the permanent stigmatisation, which extended over fifty years (September 1918 - September 1968)."

Reference: Gerardo Di Flumeri, The Padre Pio Case. Testimonies and Medical Reports, trans. Philippe Cola, Médiaspaul, Paris, 1994, p. 6.^[9]

The intermittent signs (1910-1918)

Ordained priest on 10 August 1910, the young Padre Pio reports from the following year painful phenomena which he at first keeps secret. In a letter of 8 September 1911 to his spiritual director, he describes:

"In the middle of the palms of my hands, a little redness appeared, almost the shape of a centime, a phenomenon accompanied by strong and acute pain in the middle of this red spot. […] Even under my feet, I am in some pain. This phenomenon has been recurring for almost a year."

Reference: Padre Pio, letter of 8 September 1911, in Gerardo Di Flumeri, The Padre Pio Case, Médiaspaul, Paris, 1994, pp. 43-44.^[10]

On 10 October 1915, he specifies that these marks were at first visible, especially on one hand, before being outwardly removed at his request, while the pain, for its part, did not cease:

"They were visible, especially on one hand […] Since then they have not appeared again; if the wounds disappeared, however, the very acute pain […] did not disappear."

Reference: Padre Pio, letter of 10 October 1915, in Gerardo Di Flumeri, The Padre Pio Case, Médiaspaul, Paris, 1994, p. 45.^[11]

This eight-year period establishes a point that later medical reports will have to take into account: the wounds do not appear abruptly in 1918 without antecedent — they follow intermittent signs documented by his own correspondence since 1910-1911.

The transverberation of 5–7 August 1918

Six weeks before the permanent wounds, Padre Pio describes to Father Benedetto an experience of transverberation, that is, an inward wound experienced as a painful penetration of the soul. In his letter of 21 August 1918, he places the beginning on the evening of 5 August, while he was hearing the confessions of the pupils of the minor seminary. A heavenly figure appears to him, holding an instrument resembling a long blade from the tip of which fire issues. He reports uninterrupted suffering until the morning of 7 August.^[12]

"I feel in the deepest part of my soul a wound that is always open and which causes me continual suffering."

— Padre Pio, letter to Father Benedetto, 21 August 1918.^[13]

The account describes a spiritual experience in the terms of the wound; the permanent bodily marks will be reported separately in the letter of 22 October. This sequence, taken up by the Mirabilis Committee, places the September events within a spiritual history prior to the first medical expert assessments.^[14]

20 September 1918

The account closest to the event appears in a letter dated 22 October 1918, a month after the events:

"It was the morning of the 20th of last month, in the choir, after the celebration of Holy Mass […] The figure vanished from my sight, and I realised that my hands, my feet and my side were pierced and bleeding."

Reference: Padre Pio, letter of 22 October 1918, in Gerardo Di Flumeri, The Padre Pio Case, Médiaspaul, Paris, 1994, pp. 49-50.^[15]

This letter documents what Padre Pio states he experienced; it is by no means a medical assessment — the first clinical examinations come only seven months later, in May 1919.

Overview of the medical chronology

Before going into the details of each report, the consensus description of the lesions must be established, as synthesised by Di Flumeri from the three examinations of 1919-1920. On the hands, the right palmar lesion is located near the third metacarpal:

« It had a circular shape a little over two centimetres in diameter […] It was a shiny, pigmented membrane, of a viscous red, slightly raised in the centre […] Its edges were slightly fringed. »

Reference: Gerardo Di Flumeri, Le cas Padre Pio, Médiaspaul, Paris, 1994, p. 7.^[33]

This surface description still tells us nothing about the true depth of the lesions — and it is precisely on this point that Romanelli, Bignami and Festa will diverge head-on, as the following sections show in detail.

Hands and feet: perforation or superficial lesion?

On the feet, Romanelli describes in May 1919 circular areas the size of a five-centime coin, red and shiny; Bignami, in July, sees only a « small dark slough, very superficial, rounded, intensely coloured by iodine tincture »^[34]; Festa locates the lesion in the middle of the second metatarsal and states that « the underlying metatarsal appeared intact throughout its length »^[35]. Three descriptions, three doctors, three interpretations of the depth — the disagreement concerns less what is visible on the surface than what should be deduced from it for the underlying tissues.

The following table summarises, item by item, what each of the three examiners of 1919-1920 observed and concluded:

The wound in the side: a changing shape

The thoracic wound is the most unstable element of the file. The following table compares five successive descriptions of the thoracic lesion by several observers, between May 1919 and July 1964:

Di Flumeri himself acknowledges that these variations in shape do not require a supernatural explanation:

« The causes of these modifications must not necessarily be sought in the sphere of the supernatural; causes of a purely natural order suffice to explain them. »

Reference: Gerardo Di Flumeri, Le cas Padre Pio, Médiaspaul, Paris, 1994, p. 19.^[53]

This acknowledgement, coming from the postulator of the cause himself, frames the reading of the rest of the file: morphological variability is not an argument against the material authenticity of the lesions, but it does preclude presenting the wound in the side as a fixed geometric figure, identical for fifty years.

Luigi Romanelli, chief surgeon at the civil hospital of Barletta,^[54] is the first practitioner to examine Padre Pio, on 15 and 16 May 1919, then again in June and July of the same year.^[55] His report, written on the spot, is the most committed of the three in its conclusions.

The palpatory sensation of "emptiness"

Romanelli's most spectacular claim rests on the palpation of the hands:

"By placing the thumb on the palm and the index finger on the back of the hand so as to cover the two regions described, and making a pressing movement which proves very painful, one has the exact sensation of an emptiness between the two fingers, which seem separated only by the membranes and by soft, supple tissue; under pressure, it gives the impression of sand, and neither the bones nor the soft tissues existing in these regions offer any resistance."

Reference: Luigi Romanelli, report of 15–16 May 1919, in Gerardo Di Flumeri, Le cas Padre Pio, Médiaspaul, Paris, 1994, pp. 152–153.^[56]

He concludes: "There is discontinuity of the tissues through the thickness of the hand."^[57] This conclusion must immediately be qualified by two limits that the record itself reveals. First, Bignami and Festa would later palpate metacarpals that they describe as normal, and the X-rays of 1954 would show no bone interruption.^[58] Second, Romanelli himself would later specify that he did not push the manoeuvre as far as bringing his two fingers into contact, the pain inflicted on the patient having prevented him from doing so.^[59] It is therefore a palpatory sensation interpreted as discontinuity, not the direct visualization of a channel running through.

As for the feet, Romanelli asserts a similar conclusion — "it is manifest that there is an empty space and that the foot is pierced"^[60] — but would acknowledge in his letter of 7 November 1920 that the thickness of the feet had made it impossible for him to reproduce there the compression manoeuvre carried out on the hands.^[61] The probative asymmetry between hands and feet must therefore be preserved: the strongest claim concerns an organ on which the verification gesture could not, by the doctor's own admission, be performed.

The thoracic wound and the "arterial blood"

On the side, Romanelli describes:

"In the left hemithorax […] almost at the level of the left sixth intercostal space, one notes an open, linear wound, following the direction of the ribs, some seven centimetres in length, with clean and slightly inverted edges, affecting the soft tissues."

Reference: Luigi Romanelli, report of 15–16 May 1919, in Gerardo Di Flumeri, Le cas Padre Pio, Médiaspaul, Paris, 1994, p. 153.^[62]

He adds: "The examination reveals that the wound runs from bottom to top, and rather from the outside inwards, with loss of arterial blood. […] the probing of the wound cannot be carried out, which is why it is difficult to judge its depth."^[63] This point deserves emphasis: Romanelli does not probe the wound and explicitly acknowledges that he cannot measure its depth. The description of "arterial blood" rests on a visual observation, without sampling or assay.

Romanelli ends his report by excluding any natural cause: the agent must, in his view, "certainly be sought in the supernatural".^[64] His letter of 19 May 1919, in which he already speaks of a "living miracle" and a "relic",^[65] expresses an explicit religious interpretation — which does not invalidate his clinical observations, but requires that, in reading his report, one carefully separate what belongs to examination data from what belongs to spontaneous religious interpretation.

The collegial examination of July 1920: divergences not erased

In July 1920, Romanelli and Festa conducted a joint examination, organized precisely because Festa had initially judged the lesions to be superficial. Romanelli then noted hands "more swollen and completely covered with blood crusts, very painful".^[66] The pain prevented the 1919 palpation from being repeated; the two doctors agreed only on this point:

"This is why we agreed in holding that the thick crusts, too sensitive to the touch, concealed something impossible to see at present, but which I had been able to see and observe well when these crusts were not there."

Reference: Luigi Romanelli, letter of 9 August 1920, in Gerardo Di Flumeri, Le cas Padre Pio, Médiaspaul, Paris, 1994, p. 167.^[67]

This is therefore not a collegial confirmation of a complete perforation: it is an agreement on the impossibility of examining beneath the crusts in 1920, to which Romanelli adds his own recollection of 1919. On the right foot, the falling of a crust did, however, allow the observation of "a very clean hole" on the top and "another hole, similar to the first and corresponding perfectly and precisely with the one above" on the sole.^[68] Neither Romanelli nor Festa, however, report the passage of a probe or any instrumental proof of anatomical communication between the two openings.

On the side, Romanelli himself records the change in shape between his three observations:

"In May, I had seen only a single branch, transverse and deep. Doctor Festa saw a cross with equal branches, but superficial. Now, we have together observed a cross with one branch wider and the other narrower. It appears superficial, but it bleeds enormously, so much so that we removed from it a cloth soaked in warm blood."

Reference: Luigi Romanelli, letter of 9 August 1920, in Gerardo Di Flumeri, Le cas Padre Pio, Médiaspaul, Paris, 1994, p. 168.^[69]

Romanelli adds honestly: "I neither know nor can explain" how the lesion seen as superficial in October 1919 could have corresponded to the deeper one he believed he had observed in May.^[70]

Amico Bignami, professor of general pathology at the University of Rome, examines Padre Pio in July 1919, as part of a mission related to a request from the Holy Office conveyed through the Capuchin Curia.^[71] His report is dated 26 July 1919. It is a single mission, but not necessarily a single examination: Paolino reports a two-day stay during which the professor examined him several times.^[72] Romanelli and Festa, for their part, would return several months apart.

General examination and neurovegetative signs

Bignami measures a resting pulse of 90 per minute, generally normal breathing, and a liver and spleen showing no abnormality. On the neurological front, he notes:

"There is obvious dermographism throughout the thorax and even on the back. The vasomotor reflexes are brisk. Movements are entirely normal, as are the superficial and tendon reflexes. Padre Pio states that he has never suffered from nervous illnesses: he has never had fainting fits, convulsions, or tremors."

Reference: Amico Bignami, report of 26 July 1919, in Gerardo Di Flumeri, Le cas Padre Pio, Médiaspaul, Paris, 1994, p. 178.^[73]

He also notes diffuse cutaneous hyperaesthesia, more pronounced on the left side of the thorax and in the extremities.^[74] These observations must be recorded precisely: Bignami describes neither perfect balance nor any major neurological disorder, but genuine neurovegetative signs — dermographism (the skin reddens and rises where the finger passes), brisk vasomotor reflexes (the skin's small vessels react strongly and quickly), hyperaesthesia (exaggerated sensitivity of the skin to touch) — with no fainting or convulsions reported.

Hands, feet and side: the opposite of Romanelli

On the hands, Bignami writes in black and white the opposite of his predecessor:

"Upon careful palpation, the metacarpal bones are readily felt, perfectly normal in volume and shape, and this is so both in the right hand and the left hand: the same may be said of the soft parts."

Reference: Amico Bignami, report of 26 July 1919, in Gerardo Di Flumeri, Le cas Padre Pio, Médiaspaul, Paris, 1994, p. 179.^[75]

As to the thorax, he is equally unequivocal: "Nowhere does the lesion deepen; the dermis is not affected at all."^[76] This contradiction with Romanelli is not merely a difference in vocabulary: it is a head-on clinical disagreement over the depth of the same lesions, examined two months apart.

The explicit rejection of simulation

Bignami's report considers three hypotheses — deliberate artificial production, a morbid condition, or a combination of a morbid condition and artificial maintenance — and categorically rejects the first:

"I cannot accept the first hypothesis at all, and especially for lack of direct evidence. […] the impression of sincerity that Padre Pio gave me prevents me from thinking of outright simulation."

Reference: Amico Bignami, report of 26 July 1919, in Gerardo Di Flumeri, Le cas Padre Pio, Médiaspaul, Paris, 1994, p. 181.^[77]

This point is crucial and corrects a recurring distortion of the record, even among Catholic authors favourable to the case: in his report, Bignami rules out conscious fraud. Nor does he mention carbolic acid in his conclusion — the formula still circulating today, associating Bignami with phenol, comes from the recollections of a religious of the convent, not from the text of his report itself.^[78]

The real conclusion: neurotrophic necrosis and possible chemical maintenance

Bignami's exact wording deserves to be quoted in full, for it is this, and not a summary, that should serve as the reference:

"We may indeed suppose that the lesions described began as pathological products (multiple neurotrophic necrosis of the skin) and were, perhaps unconsciously and through a phenomenon of suggestion, completed in their symmetry and artificially maintained by a chemical means, for example with tincture of iodine."

Reference: Amico Bignami, report of 26 July 1919, in Gerardo Di Flumeri, Le cas Padre Pio, Médiaspaul, Paris, 1994, p. 182.^[79]

Bignami himself acknowledges that the perfect symmetry and the permanence of the lesions are precisely what neurotrophic necrosis alone does not explain — which is why he adds the hypothesis of chemical maintenance, presented as possibly unconscious, with iodine given as an example, not as a certainty. His general conclusion nevertheless remains decisive: "In the skin alterations described, there is nothing that could not be the product of a morbid condition and the action of known chemical agents."^[80]

Giorgio Festa, a Roman surgeon, conducted the most extensive examination: an examination on 9 and 10 October 1919, followed by three additional days of observation,^[81] a collegial visit in July 1920, a third report in April 1925, and then a chance re-examination in October 1925.

October 1919: protocol and two cloths in ten hours

Festa arrived on 9 October 1919, examined Padre Pio that same evening, and then stayed three additional days for a psychological study.^[82] He noted a pulse of 64 per minute, normal reflexes, intense skin hypersensitivity in the injured areas, and concluded on the mental state:

"In the examinations carried out on his person and in the interrogation to which I had to subject him in order to gather these data, one always notes great balance and a truly perfect harmony between the functions of his nervous system and the faculties of his mind."

Reference: Giorgio Festa, first report of 28 October 1919, in Gerardo Di Flumeri, The Padre Pio Case, Médiaspaul, Paris, 1994, p. 190.^[83]

This assessment remains a clinical appreciation of its time, without any standardized psychometric testing — a point to bear in mind rather than presenting it as a psychiatric expertise in the contemporary sense.

As to the hands, Festa located the left palmar lesion on the third metacarpal, measured it at "a little over two centimetres," and noted that Padre Pio could not close his fist completely, but immediately specified: "The metacarpal situated beneath it shows anatomically no discontinuity: it appears intact and regular along its entire length."^[84] On the feet, he observed a "slight, but continuous" loss of serosanguineous fluid, with a metatarsus he deemed intact.^[85]

The most precise piece of data in the file concerns the overnight observation of the side:

"When I examined Padre Pio for the first time at around nine o'clock in the evening, I removed from this wound a cloth the size of an ordinary handkerchief. It was entirely soaked with serosanguineous fluid. I replaced it with a new white cloth […] at around seven o'clock in the morning […] I found that this handkerchief — and another cloth of the same size, which Padre Pio had added during the night — were completely soaked in this same serosanguineous secretion."

Reference: Giorgio Festa, first report of 28 October 1919, in Gerardo Di Flumeri, The Padre Pio Case, Médiaspaul, Paris, 1994, p. 194.^[86]

This observation documents two cloths soaked in ten hours — the only measurement in the file that approaches a direct quantification — but Festa explicitly speaks of a serosanguineous secretion, not of pure blood, and never converts this observation into a volume.

Festa's response to the chemical hypothesis

Festa opposes the hypothesis of an applied irritant with the very topography of the lesions:

"They are not due to the application of chemical substances, because the action of the latter is never strictly limited to the injured area […] but extends beyond its limits […] with a reaction whose index is always given by a degree of more or less visible redness, by oedema, by infiltrations."

Reference: Giorgio Festa, first report of 28 October 1919, in Gerardo Di Flumeri, The Padre Pio Case, Médiaspaul, Paris, 1994, pp. 195-196.^[87]

He adds that, according to the information received, any application of a product had ceased more than three months earlier without the lesions disappearing.^[88] He then rules out the thermocautery on account of the absence of peripheral reaction and of typical scarring, neurotic necrosis on account of the absence of any diagnosed psychic disorder, and haemophilia on account of the absence of haemorrhagic antecedents.^[89] His 1919 conclusion has two levels. He first notes the limits of the medical explanations he has examined:

"In conclusion, therefore, the lesions that Padre Pio presents and the haemorrhages to which they give rise have an origin that our knowledge is very far from being able to explain."

Reference: Giorgio Festa, first report of 28 October 1919, in Gerardo Di Flumeri, The Padre Pio Case, Médiaspaul, Paris, 1994, p. 201.^[90]

He immediately continues with a religious interpretation, also grounded in Padre Pio's life of prayer and devotion:

"Their reason for being is far higher than human science!"

— Giorgio Festa, report of 28 October 1919.^[91]

Festa sees in these marks the signs of a divine predilection and links their placement to the sufferings of Christ. His conclusion therefore does not reduce itself to clinical ignorance: it combines the exclusion of the causes he discusses with a believing reading of the phenomenon. This first report, however, contains neither biopsy, nor bacteriological culture, nor platelet count; his reasoning proceeds mainly from the examination of the lesions, their evolution and the patient's medical history.

July 1920: counter-test with alcohol and starch glycerolate

During the collegial examination of July 1920, Festa came equipped to verify for himself the hypothesis of maintenance with iodine tincture raised by Bignami a year earlier:

"But neither ethyl alcohol nor starch glycerolate applied to the lesions were able to bring to light the slightest trace of iodine or to uncover the least piece of normal underlying skin."

Reference: Giorgio Festa, second report of 31 August 1920, in Gerardo Di Flumeri, The Padre Pio Case, Médiaspaul, Paris, 1994, p. 214.^[92]

After the scabs fell off, he observed on the feet a pink scar with, at its centre, a small irregular lesion "the size of a lentil" extending in depth, reproduced dorsally and plantarly.^[93] This counter-examination, carried out a year after Bignami, does not prove that the latter had observed poorly in 1919 — the appearance of the lesions may have changed in the meantime — but it constitutes the only chemical test directly carried out on the wounds in the entire corpus.

Festa's report also specifies that the protocol attributed to Bignami — removal of the iodine, prolonged bandaging — comes from the testimony of the religious and from his own memories, not from the text of the Bignami report itself, which prescribes neither duration nor precise protocol.^[94]

1925: a memoir, not a new clinical examination

Festa's third document, dated 7 April 1925 and submitted to the Holy Office, is not the account of a new examination. Festa explains this himself:

"I requested from this Authority, on 15 December 1924, authorization to subject him once again to a new clinical examination […] For reasons that my duty forbids me from seeking to know or to discuss, this authorization was refused me."

Reference: Giorgio Festa, third report submitted on 7 April 1925, in Gerardo Di Flumeri, The Padre Pio Case, Médiaspaul, Paris, 1994, pp. 229-230.^[95]

This memoir is therefore a retrospective text, based on the examinations of 1919–1920 and on indirect information. In it he answers the chemical objection by explaining the real presence of phenol at the convent: the rector prepared disinfectant solutions for injections against malaria, and Padre Pio helped him dilute them; crude phenol was also used for the hygiene of the latrines and sometimes for the floor of his cell.^[96] Festa concedes access to the product, but opposes to it the evolution of the wounds:

"Even admitting for a moment that Padre Pio had applied to his wounds […] iodine tincture, phenic acid or some other irritant substance […]"

Reference: Giorgio Festa, third report submitted on 7 April 1925, in Gerardo Di Flumeri, The Padre Pio Case, Médiaspaul, Paris, 1994, p. 236.^[97]

— before objecting the absence of scarring or of progressive destruction of the skin, incompatible in his view with chemical irritation repeated over years.

On Agostino Gemelli, a Franciscan, physician and founder of the Catholic University of Milan, whose critical opinion is circulating in Roman circles, Festa is categorical:

"An excellent priest and doctor, Father Gemelli […] went to San Giovanni Rotondo […] with the aim of examining Padre Pio; but not being in possession of valid authorization from his Superiors, he was not allowed to examine his wounds: he was able to have only a very brief conversation with him."

Reference: Giorgio Festa, third report submitted on 7 April 1925, in Gerardo Di Flumeri, Le cas Padre Pio, Médiaspaul, Paris, 1994, pp. 240-241.^[98]

This point, independently confirmed by Boniface,^[99] is essential for the rest of the dossier: Gemelli never clinically examined the stigmata of Padre Pio. His opinion, often cited as though it were an expert assessment, is in reality a judgment formed without any direct examination.

The cloth taken to Rome and the fragrance reported

One detail sets Festa apart from the other witnesses to the fragrance associated with Padre Pio: he is deprived of his sense of smell. He states this expressly in his report of 31 August 1920, then recalls it in that of 7 April 1925. He had therefore written nothing on this subject in his first report, for lack of personal perception.^[100] Joachim Bouflet takes up this particularity in his study of mystical phenomena: the doctor's anosmia must remain attached to the story of the cloth, as it determines the testimonial scope of the account.^[101]

During the visit of October 1919, Festa takes away a soaked cloth from the wound in the side in order to examine it under a microscope. His fellow passengers in the car point out a fragrance to him, despite the ventilation during the journey. In Rome, he keeps the cloth in a cabinet in his office; people who come to consult him spontaneously ask him about the perfume that fills the room. The doctor reports a smell compared to a mixture of violets and roses, also mentioned by Romanelli.^[102]

"Being personally totally deprived of the sense of smell, and consequently unable to pass personal judgment on this subject, I had not said a word about it in my first report […]"

— Giorgio Festa, report of 31 August 1920, excerpt.^[103]

Festa deduces from the persistence of the smell on the fabric that it was linked to the blood rather than to the mere presence of the religious. He thus reports the perceptions of other people and offers an interpretation; he provides neither a chemical identification of an odorous substance nor any instrumental measurement of its emission.

The re-examination of 5 October 1925

A few months later, Festa operates on Padre Pio for a hernia using the Bassini method (a classic technique for repairing an inguinal hernia, by reconstructing the inguinal canal). During a collapse with loss of consciousness, he takes the opportunity to re-examine the wounds without the patient's knowledge:

"I took advantage of one of those moments to re-examine, without his knowledge, the wounds that five years earlier I had had the opportunity to study, and which I now find again with the identical characteristics to those I had described in my previous reports."

Reference: Giorgio Festa, testimony relating to the operation of 5 October 1925, in Gerardo Di Flumeri, Le cas Padre Pio, Médiaspaul, Paris, 1994, p. 299.^[104]

He adds that the scab on the side, which had fallen off since his previous examination, reveals a wound that is "fresh and bright red, in the shape of a cross".^[105] This observation provides direct longitudinal follow-up after five years, but it raises a methodological and ethical reservation that must be named: Padre Pio had expressly refused a further examination, and Festa acts here without his consent.

A report signed under oath by three religious — Paolino of Casacalenda, Basilio of Mirabello Sannitico and Ludovico of San Marco in Lamis — describes eight days of observation without medication. The document bears no date; Di Flumeri places it in July 1919, at the end of the experiment requested by Bignami. The signatories state that they applied no product under the bandages and that they removed the bottle of tincture of iodine from the room. They record two results:

"The state of the wounds during these eight days remained the same, except on the last day when they took on a bright red colour."

"Every day, as can be seen from the cloths that we keep, all the wounds bleed; it was on the last day that the bleeding was the most significant."

Reference: sworn report by Paolino of Casacalenda, Basilio of Mirabello Sannitico and Ludovico of San Marco in Lamis, July 1919, in Gerardo Di Flumeri, Le cas Padre Pio, Médiaspaul, Paris, 1994, p. 63.^[106]

The details of the seals appear in Paolino's recollections: each morning, in the presence of witnesses, the previous day's bandages are removed after the seals have been checked, then replaced. He states that the seals were always found intact. This is therefore not a dressing left closed for eight days without being opened, but a supervised daily renewal.^[107]

According to Paolino, Bignami expected this control to make it possible to observe healing after the products were withdrawn. The experiment does not produce the expected result: the lesions persist and still bleed on the eighth day. It thus answers the hypothesis of daily maintenance through concealed application; on its own, it does not constitute an experiment covering all the possible causes of a chronic lesion. Boniface later speaks of "a few weeks" of bandaging; the report of the three signatories expressly states eight days.^[108][109]

Paolino further reports that on the eighth day, during Mass, the blood flowed "with such abundance […] that we were obliged to have him bring handkerchiefs so that he could wipe himself".^[110] This scene, immediately following the removal of the sealed bandages, is consistent with the observation of "bright red" recorded by the three witnesses under oath.

Descriptions of soaked cloths attest to bleeding, but do not directly give its volume. An observation of serum mixed with blood, a hemoglobin assay on tissue, and an estimation in a basin are three data points of a different nature.

The data actually documented

A letter from the provincial Pietro d'Ischitella, dated 28 November 1919, states that "the reddish-brown skin bleeds practically without stopping, to the point of soaking several cloths a day".^[111] The sworn report of July 1919 confirms daily bleeding during the eight days of isolation, without quantifying its volume.^[112] Festa, in October 1919, documents two handkerchief-sized cloths soaked with bloody serum over ten hours.^[113] In 1954, an examination of the cloth worn by Padre Pio showed a hemoglobin level of 12% by the Sahli method (visual comparison of the tint of diluted blood against a standard color scale) — a concentration measurement on a portion of washed fabric, neither a volume nor a percentage of total body blood, and the complementary microscopic examination could not be carried out due to the deterioration of the red blood cells.^[114]

The figures not to be retained

An estimate in liters appears in the testimony of Pellegrino Funicelli. It is the isolated recollection of one witness, Pellegrino Funicelli, a nurse at the convent in the later years:

"I saw with astonishment about half a liter of half-coagulated blood in the basin."

Reference: Pellegrino Funicelli, testimony, in Gerardo Di Flumeri, Le cas Padre Pio, Médiaspaul, Paris, 1994, p. 125.^[115]

This half-liter is a visual estimate of a single, undated episode, without instrumental measurement, and without Pellegrino himself witnessing the outflow: he merely infers its origin from the wound in the side. Ennemond Boniface, writing in 1971, goes further and speaks, depending on the passage, of "a cup of blood"^[116] or "a small bowl of blood"^[117] lost each day — two different formulations for the same alleged fact, without protocol, without a standardized container, without a clinical source. These containers are not calibrated and no twenty-four-hour collection is described: their names allow neither conversion into milliliters nor the calculation of an average daily loss.

The table below summarizes what the corpus does, or does not, allow us to state about blood loss:

The 1954 hemostasis assessment

The most rigorous check of the record remains that of Luigi Pancaro: examination on 13 September 1954, report written in Foggia on 19 September.^[124] After a night of precordial distress, Padre Pio "told us, a little embarrassed, that he had also noticed a marked decrease in the bleeding of the wounds he has borne for years".^[125] Pancaro had a complete blood count taken — 4,470,000 red blood cells per mm³, 10,750 white blood cells, hemoglobin at least equal to 80% — as well as coagulation tests: clotting time 6 minutes, bleeding time 2 minutes 16 seconds, clot retraction in 2 hours 50.^[126] The hematological examination and the clotting, clot retraction, and bleeding times are described as "essentially negative"^[127] — that is, without signs of a general bleeding disorder. This is the best quantified biological data available to the record, thirty-five years after the first examinations.

Padre Pio's popular success prompts early Roman surveillance. On 31 May 1923, the Holy Office issues a first decree:

"The Supreme Congregation of the Holy Office, charged with the faith and the defence of the integrity of morals, after an inquiry into the facts attributed to Padre Pio of Pietrelcina of the Friars Minor Capuchin, residing in the monastery of San Giovanni Rotondo, in the diocese of Foggia, declares, after the said inquiry, that the supernatural character of these facts has not been established, and exhorts the faithful to conform their acts to the present declaration."

Reference: decree of the Holy Office of 31 May 1923, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 15 (1923), p. 356, cited in Gerardo Di Flumeri, Le cas Padre Pio, Médiaspaul, Paris, 1994, pp. 226-227, and in Ennemond Boniface, Padre Pio le crucifié, Nouvelles Éditions Latines, Paris, 1971, p. 34.^[128]

On 24 July 1924, a second decree hardens the position:

"Having gathered further information from the most reliable sources, this Supreme Congregation solemnly invites the faithful to abstain from any contact, even by letter, with the aforementioned Father, out of devotion with him."

Reference: decree of the Holy Office of 24 July 1924, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 16 (1924), p. 368, cited in Gerardo Di Flumeri, Le cas Padre Pio, Médiaspaul, Paris, 1994, pp. 226-227, and in Ennemond Boniface, Padre Pio le crucifié, Nouvelles Éditions Latines, Paris, 1971, p. 34.^[129]

The acts that follow are not mere repetitions: they also target the publication, without ecclesiastical authorization, of books devoted to Padre Pio. The communiqué of 23 April 1926 bans the booklet published in Rome by Giorgio Berlutti with a preface by Giuseppe De Rossi. That of 11 July 1926 targets the work by Giuseppe Cavaciocchi from the same publisher. The notification of 22 May 1931 concerns A Padre Pio di Pietralcina, l'Araldo del Signore by Alberto Del Fante, published in Bologna. The three acts also recall the provisions of 1923 and 1924.^{[130][131][132]}

What "non constat" means — and does not mean

The 1923 declaration means that the supernatural character of the facts is not established. It is a non-constat, a legal and prudential category specific to canon law, not a declaration of fraud nor a medical diagnosis of simulation. The physician René Biot, in the first edition of L'Énigme des stigmatisés, sums up the position of the religious authority thus:

"And the word we wrote at the head of this essay: enigma; is indeed the one that seems to us fitting, since we remain before problems without having settled them."

Reference: René Biot, L'Énigme des stigmatisés, 1st ed., pp. 177-178, cited in Ennemond Boniface, Padre Pio le crucifié, Nouvelles Éditions Latines, Paris, 1971, p. 52.^[138]

The disciplinary restrictions of 1923-1931 would be gradually lifted in the following decades; they were never presented by Rome as the conclusion of an inquiry that had established fraud. An earlier local report, transmitted on 28 June 1919 by the prefect of Foggia, Camillo de Frabitiis, to the Minister of the Interior, already cautiously relayed, in the conditional, the opinion of the local physician Angelo Maria Merla, who "did not rule out the hypothesis that these might be artificially made stains," without being able to specify their exact nature.^[139] This document, of a police rather than medical nature, illustrates the climate of suspicion in which the first Roman decrees were issued, without constituting proof of them.

Four major objections run through the critical literature on Padre Pio over the past century. The file makes it possible to state them honestly and to answer them with the data gathered above, without softening them.

Objection 1 — conscious fraud through self-inflicted injury

The most radical objection claims that Padre Pio inflicted the wounds on himself. Boniface reports in particular that the apostolic visitor Carlo Maccari allegedly described them as "self-inflicted injuries" at a private press conference on 4 October 1960.^[140] It found an echo in the Italian press of the time: L'Espresso of 16 October 1960 reports that "a priest from Bari, Father Gagliardi, [allegedly] discovered a bottle of nitric acid in the convent cell, where the monk's hands bled every night".^[141] Archbishop Pasquale Gagliardi allegedly even stated under oath, at a meeting of bishops in Rome, that he had seen with his own eyes a bottle of acid in Padre Pio's cell.^[142]

Response: none of the three doctors who examine Padre Pio in 1919–1920 upholds this hypothesis. Bignami explicitly rules it out for lack of direct evidence and because of the impression of sincerity he takes away from the interview.^[143] The eight-day protocol, with sealed bandages and the removal of all products, shows no gradual improvement that would betray the cessation of self-application; on the contrary, the bleeding peaks on the final day.^[144] Boniface repeats the statement attributed to Gagliardi without reproducing the original deposition: it therefore provides no clinical finding comparable to the three named reports.

Objection 2 — the chemical agent (iodine, phenol, nitric acid)

Three different substances are invoked depending on the authors and the periods: tincture of iodine by Bignami in 1919, carbolic acid through Paolino's recollections and then by Festa himself in 1925,^[145] and nitric acid by the press in 1960. These three products must be distinguished so that each author is credited with the hypothesis he actually put forward.

Response: only the tincture of iodine actually appears in Bignami's written conclusion, and only as an example of "perhaps unconscious" maintenance, not as a confident diagnosis.^[151] Festa directly tested this hypothesis in 1920 with ethyl alcohol and starch glycerite, detecting not the slightest trace of iodine.^[152] As for phenol, Festa explains in 1925 its actual presence at the convent — disinfection, latrine hygiene — while objecting that the lesions do not evolve as a repeated chemical injury would: no peripheral spread, no disappearance after the supposed cessation of application.^[153] As for nitric acid, none of the three assessments of 1919–1920 mentions it; Boniface cites on this point a 1960 press article, without producing any analysis of the contents of the bottle.

Objection 3 — hysteria or autosuggestion

The hypothesis of a hysterical mechanism or autosuggestion, very prominent in the early twentieth-century medical literature on stigmatists in general, has been applied to Padre Pio, notably through an opinion attributed to Gemelli.^[154] The neurologist Joseph Babinski, in his Principaux Travaux, had conducted on this ground an experiment that became famous:

"Having plunged her into hypnotic sleep, I endeavoured to suggest to her that she had been burned on the arm […] I took care to enclose the limb in a silicated apparatus […] Well, forty-eight hours later, having undone the apparatus, I observed in the experimental region neither the slightest epidermal raising, nor even the slightest redness."

Reference: Joseph Babinski, Principaux Travaux, Masson, Paris, 1934, cited in Ennemond Boniface, Padre Pio le crucifié, Nouvelles Éditions Latines, Paris, 1971, p. 279.^[155]

Babinski further distinguishes genuine skin frauds from organic lesions: "Fraud lies in the fact that subjects affected by these disorders claim that they developed spontaneously, whereas they result from the application of an irritant substance, the introduction of a foreign body beneath the teguments, the constriction of a limb by a ligature, or some other artifice."^[156]

Response: Babinski's experiment, carried out on a hysterical patient and not on Padre Pio, produced no skin redness in forty-eight hours. This result therefore provides no experimental reproduction of Padre Pio's lesions; a single experiment, however, cannot by itself rule out every psychophysiological mechanism. Bignami notes in Padre Pio real neurovegetative signs (dermatographism, hyperaesthesia, brisk vasomotor reflexes), with no fainting, convulsion or trembling reported,^[157] but does not experimentally demonstrate a mechanism producing the five lesions from these signs. In 1936, the neurologist Jean Lhermitte made the same observation of caution:

"Contrary to all those who, under the cover of experimental science and so-called positive facts, maintain that we can grasp in one of its parts the process of mystical stigmatization, […] we are as far from the explanation of the stigmata as in the days of Charcot, Bourneville, Bernheim and Virchow."

Reference: Jean Lhermitte, "Le problème médical de la stigmatisation", Études Carmélitaines, October 1936, p. 71, cited in Ennemond Boniface, Padre Pio le crucifié, Nouvelles Éditions Latines, Paris, 1971, p. 283.^[158]

He adds: "there exists no physiological process that, closely or remotely, approaches stigmatization".^[159] This formulation of 1936, rigorous and free of automatic apologetic conclusions, illustrates the explanatory limits of the medicine of his day in the face of the file — without this amounting to proof of the supernatural, which Lhermitte himself does not claim.

Objection 4 — neurotic necrosis or an unidentified dermatosis

The strictly dermatological hypothesis is Bignami's: multiple neurotic necrosis of the skin, maintained and rendered symmetrical by a possibly unconscious chemical agent.^[160]

Response: In 1919, Bignami seeks to explain the symmetry and the already observed persistence of the lesions by adding to the dermatological hypothesis that of chemical maintenance. His report obviously cannot cover their evolution over the following decades.^[161] Festa, for his part, rules out this hypothesis in 1919 on the grounds of the absence of any diagnosed mental disorder and of the typical variability shown by the neurotic necroses described in the literature, which he considers incompatible with the relative stability observed in Padre Pio.^[162] None of the three doctors has a histological examination or biopsy to settle this hypothesis definitively by laboratory means.

Thirty-five years after the first examinations, two follow-up checks provide data of a different order: instrumental for one, biological for the other.

Alberto Caserta's X-rays

Di Flumeri dates to 14 October 1954 the X-rays of the hands and feet performed by Alberto Caserta. In his presentation of the documents, he summarises their result as follows:

"The examination, performed in a dorso-palmar projection, both on the hands and on the feet, reveals no interruption of the bone."

Reference: Gerardo Di Flumeri, summary of the X-rays of Alberto Caserta, dated 14 October 1954, in Gerardo Di Flumeri, Le cas Padre Pio, Médiaspaul, Paris, 1994, pp. 8-10.^[163]

The "dorso-palmar projection" refers to an X-ray in which the rays pass through the hand from the back towards the palm.

This conclusion settles a point of bone anatomy in 1954, but cannot retroactively decide the tactile sensation described by Romanelli in 1919: the soft tissues and the appearance of the wounds had had thirty-five years to change between the two observations. The retrospective report of Francesco Lotti, in 1968, states that he did not personally examine the plates, but relays the radiologist's answer to his question about any possible abnormal sign at the metacarpals and metatarsals: "absolutely nothing in particular had been noted."^[164] Lotti dates the session to 13 October, whereas Di Flumeri gives the 14th — the date also borne by the captions of plates 17 to 21 and by the biographical chronology.^[165] The reported bone result is consistent; as no signed report by the radiologist is reproduced in the corpus, the passage in Di Flumeri (pp. 8-10) remains an editorial summary. The date adopted is therefore 14 October 1954, borne by the record closest to the radiologist, 13 October being only Lotti's late and isolated recollection.

Pancaro's follow-up and the credibility of the 1954 workup

Luigi Pancaro's haemostatic workup, already detailed above, complements the X-rays: blood count judged essentially normal by Pancaro, clotting and bleeding times essentially negative, with no sign of a systemic bleeding disorder.^[166] In 1955, Pancaro examines again, but only the left hand, on the occasion of a febrile episode, "to assure myself of the haemostasis and the absence of inflammatory processes that might have given rise to a febrile reaction."^[167] This second, limited check provides neither the size nor any quantified description of the lesions, and does not detail the result of the search for inflammation: the quoted sentence indicates the purpose of the examination without giving an explicit negative conclusion.

These two checks of 1954-1955 constitute, throughout the whole dossier, the period when the instrumental and biological data are at their most solid — far more so than the clinical descriptions of 1919-1920 alone, based on direct observation and palpation.

The end of the phenomenon is not a simultaneous fading of the five wounds. The sources converge instead towards a gradual and differentiated disappearance, which must be set out in its exact detail.

The feet, several months to several years before the death

Between 1965 and 1967, several witnesses no longer see any visible lesion on the feet. The witness Marcellino reports: "With the sock removed, the top of the foot appeared to me, without any sign of a wound: for the right foot as for the left foot. I did not see the sole of his feet."^[168] The attestation of the physician Giuseppe Sala, written after the death, confirms this earlier timing: "A few months before his death, the feet stopped bleeding and the protrusions we have spoken of could no longer be felt."^[169]

The hands: the back disappears the day before, the palm persists

Sala continues his description with remarkable precision:

"The hands retained their visible characteristics until the day before his death; on that day […] the wounds on the backs of the hands disappeared. During his very brief agony, the palm of the left hand still presented a crusty protrusion, which remained and was collected after his death."

Reference: Giuseppe Sala, attestation of 7 July 1969, in Gerardo Di Flumeri, Le cas Padre Pio, Médiaspaul, Paris, 1994, p. 315.^[170]

Francesco Lotti, who films from about three metres away the last public Mass on 22 September 1968, describes a clear asymmetry between the two hands:

"Now, neither lesions, nor blood clots, nor even any trace of scarring disfigured the surface of the back of the right hand that appeared in the frames. The palm of the left hand, by contrast, showed the persistence of the stigmata […] with their usual and characteristic appearance of a rounded reddish-brown spot, approximately 2-3 cm in diameter."

Reference: Francesco Lotti, statement made after 8 October 1968, in Gerardo Di Flumeri, Le cas Padre Pio, Médiaspaul, Paris, 1994, pp. 309-310.^[171]

This persistence is corroborated by the medical testimony of Rina Giordanelli, present on 20 and 22 September: on the 22nd, "we clearly saw the left hand of Padre Pio bleeding […] the blood […] was more abundant and the palm of the hand was largely stained."^[172] His confrère Pellegrino Funicelli confirms this in two press interviews given shortly after the death: "The stigmata did not disappear from the hands of Padre Pio […] if, today, someone claims that the stigmata completely disappeared from the hands of Padre Pio on the eve of his death, he is mistaken."^[173] He specifies in a second interview: "during the last four months, the hands of Padre Pio no longer bled. Only rarely did a few drops of blood come out."^[174]

23 September 1968: the post-mortem examination and its limits

Padre Pio dies at San Giovanni Rotondo during the night of 22 to 23 September 1968. Sala draws up the most detailed report in the corpus:

"The skin, at these precise locations, was like that of the rest of the body, soft, elastic, mobile, and pressure of the fingers showed no sagging of the dermis or of the subcutaneous tissues, nor even a displacement of the bones or a sagging of these."

Reference: Giuseppe Sala, attestation of 7 July 1969, in Gerardo Di Flumeri, Le cas Padre Pio, Médiaspaul, Paris, 1994, pp. 315-316.^[175]

The post-mortem photographs are taken about ten minutes after the death by Giacomo Piccirillo, in the presence of several named religious — Carmelo of San Giovanni in Galdo, Raffaele and Pellegrino of S. Elia a Pianisi, Mariano of S. Croce di Magliano.^[176] They document the absence of visible lesions on the hands and feet. Two limits must, however, be stated plainly. First, there is no autopsy and no forensic medical report: Boniface sums it up thus — "There was therefore no forensic medical report, no official record, no autopsy, no official recognition of the state of the body."^[177] Second, for the side wound specifically, Di Flumeri states that the two surviving photographs "do not capture the exact point where the wound was located" and "therefore do not have the value of a document for the disappearance of the stigmata of the side."^[178] The post-mortem examination is thus conclusive for the hands and feet, clearly less so for the chest wound.

A late testimony to be treated with caution

A statement by Andrea Cardone, dated 9 November 1968, claims to have observed, since 1910, through-and-through holes of 1.5 centimetres letting light through. The editor of the corpus, Di Flumeri, himself voices an immediate reservation: "the statement is somewhat puzzling."^[179] He then quotes a comment by Father Cruchon: "this doctor, then more than ninety years old, does not specify when he first saw the stigmata in this way, and he may be suspected of having unintentionally exaggerated the phenomenon."^[180] This statement, whose dating ("since 1910") sits in tension with the chronology of permanent wounds established from 1918, must be treated as an example of a fragile late source, not as independent confirmation of Romanelli's palpation observations.

The Capuchin archives and their documents

Boniface describes at the archives of the Capuchin General Curia a body of material that includes the reports of doctors Romanelli and Festa, the minutes of the investigation ordered by Pius XII, as well as documents relating to the blood checks. He also mentions preserved material items: cloths, undergarments, socks and bandages bearing the traces of the wounds. This inventory shows that the documentation is not limited to printed narratives: it brings together expert writings, investigative records and objects witnessing the bleeding.^[181]

Di Flumeri states for his edition that he consulted the originals or their photocopies, then transcribed them faithfully.^[182] A transcription of a report, a memory gathered after the events and an editorial presentation do not, however, give the same access to the initial observation.

Reading reports, testimonies and photographs together

The eight-day check illustrates this complementarity: the three signatories describe the state of the wounds and the removal of the iodine; Paolino later details the daily verification of the seals. Likewise, the photographs of the hands after death complement Sala's findings, while those of the chest do not exactly frame the former location of the side wound.^{[183][184][185]}

At the end of this journey through fifty years of medical reports, four findings can be stated with confidence, because they rest on dated and signed documents, and not on late syntheses.

The dossier establishes first an exceptionally long and documented clinical chronology: intermittent signs from 1910–1911, permanent wounds on 20 September 1918, named examinations in 1919, 1920, 1925, 1954–1955, film and finding in September 1968.^[186] It then establishes three genuinely divergent contemporary medical readings — Romanelli perceives a perforation and concludes to the supernatural; Bignami describes mostly superficial lesions and proposes neurotic necrosis combined with possible chemical maintenance; Festa observes subcutaneous lesions with intact metacarpals, rules out the main natural alternatives he tests, then links a medically unexplained origin to an explicit religious interpretation.^[187] This documented divergence is a strength of the dossier rather than a weakness, provided it is presented without being flattened into "unanimity" — which several late syntheses, including ones favourable to the case, nevertheless did.^[188]

The dossier establishes, thirdly, an eight-day protocol under supervision: eight days of bandages renewed under seal control, removal of all medication, daily bleeding maintained up to a maximum on the last day — a direct response to the hypothesis of an irritant applied daily.^[189][190] It finally establishes a gradual and differentiated terminal disappearance, not a simultaneous fading of the five wounds: the feet several months before death, the back of the hands the day before, the left palm still marked during the agony, then a skin described as without lesion after death.^[191]

What the dossier does not allow to be affirmed with the same certainty must be stated with equal clarity. No reliable measurement of the daily volume of blood lost exists in this corpus — the only numerical data concern cloths and a haemoglobin concentration, never a converted volume. The complete anatomical perforation of the hands, asserted by Romanelli on the sole basis of a palpation sensation, is contradicted by the direct observations of Bignami and Festa, and is confirmed by no contemporary imaging of the events — the 1954 X-rays, thirty-five years later, show bone integrity but cannot rule on the state of the tissues in 1919. The side wound was never probed. Its absence after death is reported by Sala; the photographs do not, however, constitute independent confirmation, since Di Flumeri acknowledges that they do not frame the exact location of the lesion.^[192] At the time of death, no autopsy was performed; the findings rest on external examination, attestations and photographs.^[193]

Padre Pio's stigmata constitute a phenomenon followed for nearly fifty years, documented by named and sometimes conflicting examinations. Romanelli, Bignami, and Festa agree on the existence of the lesions, but differ as to their depth and origin. None of their reports from 1919–1920 finds deliberate fraud. The no-medication supervision, Festa's cross-checks, Pancaro's assessment, and Caserta's X-rays each address a specific question; they do not form a single expert appraisal that would have continuously measured every wound over half a century.

The disappearance of the marks also belongs to this clinical history: it is gradual, uneven across the regions of the body, and followed by a finding of skin with no wound or scar after death. The daily scale of the blood loss remains without volumetric measurement, while its reality is attested by the examinations and the cloths. The decisions of the Holy Office finally distinguish the absence of any finding of supernaturality from accusations of simulation.

For Padre Pio, these sufferings are part of union with the crucified Christ, as witnessed by his correspondence. At his canonization, on 16 June 2002, Saint John Paul II placed the Cross at the center of his priestly life and his service of souls:

"Without this constant reference to the Cross, one cannot understand his holiness."

— Saint John Paul II, homily at the canonization of Padre Pio, 16 June 2002, § 2.^[194]

The homily illuminates the Christian meaning of this life of prayer, confession, and charity. It does not substitute a new diagnosis for the historical examinations: the holiness recognized by the Church and the medical study of the wounds answer different questions.

• Saint Padre Pio — full biography: ministry, confessional, Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza, and canonization.
• The Stigmatists — general article on the phenomenon of the stigmata in the history of the Church.
• The Stigmata of Louise Lateau — nineteenth-century Belgian case, investigated by the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium.
• The Stigmata of Therese Neumann — twentieth-century German file.
• The Discernment of Supernatural Phenomena — Catholic criteria applicable to this type of case.