Saint Padre Pio (1887-1968)

The life of Padre Pio can be read as a long fidelity to one place and one Cross. Here are its major stages, from the hills of Benevento to the tomb on the Gargano.

A family of devout peasants

Francesco Forgione is born on 25 May 1887 at Pietrelcina, a large farming town in the province of Benevento, and receives baptism the very next day^[1]. His parents, Grazio Maria Forgione and Maria Giuseppa De Nunzio, are cultivators without fortune but of profound piety: the rosary is prayed every evening, fasting is kept three times a week in honour of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, life moves to the rhythm of the parish church^[2]. To pay for the future priest's studies, his father will go into exile as a labourer in the United States — a discreet gesture which speaks of the place of the child's vocation at the heart of the family^[3].

These peasant roots would never leave Padre Pio. He would keep all his life the dialect speech of the Sannio, the rough common sense of people of the land, and a direct, almost physical familiarity with the supernatural — as if angels, the departed and the devil went without saying for him.

The vow to become a "bearded monk"

From childhood, Francesco is drawn to the Capuchins who come begging at Pietrelcina, and in particular to a young friar with a long beard. He declares very early that he wants to become, he too, a "bearded monk". His vocation takes shape around the age of twelve to fifteen, in an atmosphere of intense prayer and first mystical graces which his biographers already place in this period.

The supernatural nevertheless imposes itself on him without his having sought it. Shortly before his entrance to the friary, he reports a vision which seals his vocation as a combat: he sees himself beside a majestic man, of rare beauty, resplendent as the sun, who takes him by the hand and invites him to fight valiantly at his side^[4].

The same vision shows him, he says, a monstrous adversary whom he will have to face. His whole life will illustrate it: a gentle man, broken in health, yet engaged in a spiritual struggle at every instant.

Fragile health from the start

The child is of frail constitution and often falls ill. This physical fragility — unexplained fevers, digestive troubles, exhaustion — will accompany his whole life as a friar and will partly explain the long interruptions in his studies and his life in community. It is inseparable from his spiritual countenance: Padre Pio will be, from beginning to end, a man who suffers in his body, and who will learn to make of this suffering an offering.

Taking the habit and studies

On 6 January 1903, at fifteen, Francesco entered the Capuchin novitiate at Morcone^[5]. On 22 January 1903, he received the Franciscan habit and took the name Brother Pio of Pietrelcina^[6]. There began the classic course of a future priest of the Order: philosophy, theology, moves from friary to friary across Campania and Apulia.

The Capuchins formed, in the Italy of that time, an austere branch of the Franciscan family, devoted to poverty, popular preaching and penance. Young Brother Pio showed himself exemplary in obedience and fervour, but his health forced him to return frequently to his native air of Pietrelcina, the only climate in which he seemed able to hold on.

A health that worried his superiors

Brother Pio's illnesses were so disconcerting that his superiors hesitated, for a time, over his future in the Order. Extreme fevers, vomiting, inability to keep food down: the doctors spoke in turn of tuberculosis, of chronic bronchitis, with no firm diagnosis. Several times he had to leave community life. This trial, far from drawing him away from God, became a path for him: he began consciously offering his sufferings, and his youthful correspondence already reveals a man inhabited by God.

The priest of 10 August 1910

Brother Pio was ordained priest on 10 August 1910 in Benevento cathedral, at twenty-three^[7]. A few days later, he celebrated his first Mass at Pietrelcina. But his health still long prevented him from joining a stable community: he spent most of the years 1910–1916 in his village, dispensed from conventual life, under the direction of his Capuchin confessors, Fathers Benedetto of San Marco in Lamis and Agostino of San Marco in Lamis.

From this period date the most striking letters of his Epistolario: a sick young priest describes mystical phenomena of rare violence. In a letter to Father Agostino of 7 April 1913, he reports a vision in which Christ shows him the contempt of men, and particularly of certain priests:

"My son, do not believe that my agony lasted three hours; no, I shall be in agony until the end of the world, because of the souls who are dearest to me." — Christ to Padre Pio, letter to Fr. Agostino, 7 April 1913^[8]

In that same vision, Christ cries out against unworthy priests the terrible word "Butchers!"^[9]. These texts, prior to the stigmata, show that Padre Pio's vocation was first that of a reparative soul, united to the Passion well before bearing its marks.

Arrival on the Gargano

In September 1916, Brother Pio was assigned to the friary of Santa Maria delle Grazie at San Giovanni Rotondo, a small town perched on the Gargano promontory, in Apulia^[10]. The dry mountain climate suited him; he would never again leave this poor and isolated friary until his death, fifty-two years later. What was only an administrative posting would become one of the greatest spiritual centers of Catholicism: around a cloistered brother an immense pilgrimage would arise, whose material history is told in the article devoted to the sanctuary.

The stigmata of 20 September 1918

On 20 September 1918, as he was praying after Mass before the crucifix in the choir of the old church, Padre Pio received the stigmata: the five wounds of the Passion opened in his hands, his feet and his side^[11]. He would bear them, bleeding and visible, for about fifty years, until they closed shortly before his death. He is the first stigmatised priest known in the history of the Church.

The detailed account of the event, the medical examinations by doctors Romanelli, Bignami and Festa, the ecclesial discernment and the spiritual meaning of the wounds are the subject of a separate article: The Stigmata of Padre Pio. Let it only be noted here that this phenomenon immediately drew the crowds — and with them, the suspicion of Rome.

The first decree of 1923

The influx of pilgrims, the accounts of wonders and the nascent fame of the stigmatised friar alarmed the Roman authority, anxious to avoid any premature cult and any exploitation. On 31 May 1923, the Holy Office published a first decree declaring that it was "not established" that the phenomena attributed to Padre Pio were supernatural — the canonical formula non constat de supernaturalitate, which is not a condemnation but a prudent reservation^[12]. In its wake, a transfer to another friary was considered, and he was ordered to celebrate Mass in private^[13]. A monitum of 1924 invited the faithful to refrain from any contact with him^[14].

The confinement of 1931

The measures hardened. On 9 June 1931, the feast of Corpus Christi, the Holy Office imposed on Padre Pio the strictest isolation: confined within the enclosure of the friary, he was forbidden to hear confessions, celebrate Mass in public, carry on his correspondence and have any contact with the faithful^[15]. For nearly two years, he celebrated alone, in an interior chapel, sometimes before dawn, without witnesses. For a priest whose whole life was a gift to souls, this was the most heart-rending trial.

The thaw of 1933–1934

In 1933, Pope Pius XI had the case reviewed. Convinced that things had gone too far, he ordered the lifting of the ban on public celebration: Padre Pio returned to the altar and the people in July 1933^[16]. The following year, his faculties to hear confessions were gradually restored — first for men in March 1934, then for women in May 1934^[17]. The confessional was reopened to him: he would henceforth spend the greater part of his days there, for more than thirty years.

Obedience as a sign

What struck witnesses most was not the harshness of the measures, but the way Padre Pio received them. Never did he protest, never did he organize a defense, never did he allow himself the least bitterness against the Church. Ordered to be silent, he was silent; deprived of the altar, he obeyed. The official biography of the Holy See sums up this attitude thus:

"He accepted everything with profound humility and resignation." — Official biography of the Holy See^[18]

For the Catholic tradition, it is precisely this point that authenticates the rest. A proud visionary would have rebelled; an impostor would have fled or schemed. Padre Pio's peaceful obedience in trial, demanded by the Church herself, has become one of the chief arguments for his sanctity — as recalled in the Catholic discernment of supernatural phenomena, where humility and docility always take precedence over the marvel.

The confessional, his battlefield

Once his faculties were restored, Padre Pio made the confessional the center of his life. People came from all over Italy, then from the whole world, to confess to him; the faithful signed up on waiting lists several days long. He spent ten, twelve, sometimes even more hours a day hearing confessions, men in the morning, women in the afternoon, until he was exhausted. It was through this humble ministry — far more than through his stigmata — that he transformed hundreds of thousands of lives. On the meaning of this sacrament, see confession and why confess to a priest.

As a confessor, he could be harsh. He sent away penitents who were ill-disposed without absolution, unmasked hidden sins, and demanded frankness. This severity was not hardness of character but medicine for souls: those he rebuked often came back transformed, having understood that he saw clearly into them.

Reading consciences

A great many testimonies — including from unbelievers who came to challenge him — report that Padre Pio reminded the penitent of forgotten or hidden faults, sometimes decades old. This charism of reading consciences, which theology calls cardiognosis, is one of the most constantly attested features of his ministry. He never showed it off: he used it to break down resistance and lead to repentance.

Pray, hope, and do not worry

From his spiritual direction, conducted in the confessional and through abundant correspondence, has remained a counsel that tradition sums up in a formula that has become universal: pray, hope, and banish worry, for God is merciful and hears prayer^[19].

This saying sums up his pedagogy: not sentimentality, but a manly trust, anchored in prayer and patience. To those gnawed by scruple or anxiety, he tirelessly opposed abandonment. His direction drew on the great spiritual masters he had read and meditated on — the Fathers, Saint Teresa of Avila, Saint Francis de Sales — and he joined to it the authority of a man who suffered what he taught.

Beyond the stigmata, popular devotion attributes to Padre Pio a series of extraordinary phenomena. The Church, prudently, has not formally recognized them all, but they are borne by a mass of concordant testimonies. They must be received with discernment — neither raw credulity nor scepticism on principle.

The bilocations

Tradition reports many cases of bilocation — Padre Pio's simultaneous presence in two distinct places. The most famous concerns General Luigi Cadorna: after the disaster of Caporetto (1917), on the verge of suicide, the officer is said to have seen a Capuchin appear in his tent who gently dissuaded him from committing this folly, before disappearing^[20]. Other accounts, during the Second World War, credit Allied airmen with the vision of "a monk with raised hands" turning their bombs away from San Giovanni Rotondo, which was spared^[21]. The phenomenon, common to several saints, is studied in the article on bilocations.

The odor of sanctity

Many witnesses reported smelling, in Padre Pio's presence or from his wounds, an intense and inexplicable fragrance — evoking violets, roses, or incense — perceived sometimes at a great distance, as a sign of his spiritual presence or intercession. This "fragrance" is part of the cluster of mystical phenomena associated with his person, though he never drew glory from it.

The souls in purgatory

Padre Pio maintained a striking familiarity with the souls in purgatory, whom he said he saw and heard, and for whom he offered Masses and penances. A famous episode, verified by the civil register of San Giovanni Rotondo, concerns a deceased man, Pietro Di Mauro, who died in the fire of the convent hospice and who came, according to Padre Pio, to ask for a Mass^[22]. This compassion for the departed, far from a taste for the marvellous, expresses his profound conviction of the communion of saints: the living can relieve the dead on their way to God, as the Church teaches on the souls in purgatory.

A reported healing: Gemma di Giorgi

Among the healings attributed to Padre Pio's prayer, one of the most often cited is that of little Gemma di Giorgi, a Sicilian child born without pupils, and therefore blind from birth. Brought to San Giovanni Rotondo, she is said to have recovered her sight after Padre Pio prayed for her — and, a fact noted by the investigator, she could see even though examination of her eyes still showed no pupils^[23]. Having become a religious sister, she long kept silence at Padre Pio's own recommendation, before testifying publicly after his death^[24]. Like all the accounts in this chapter, this episode is reported by witnesses and biographers: the Church has not formally recognized it, but it illustrates the reputation as a thaumaturge that already surrounded the Capuchin in his lifetime.

The Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza

Padre Pio's great temporal work was a hospital. Convinced that charity must touch the body as much as the soul, he dreamed from the 1940s of a modern establishment where the poor would be treated with dignity. Inaugurated on 5 May 1956, the Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza — the "Home for the Relief of Suffering" — became one of the great hospitals of southern Italy^[25]. Padre Pio spoke of it as a place where medicine and prayer would work together. The architectural and hospital history of the Casa is developed in the article on the sanctuary.

The Prayer Groups

Responding to Pius XII's calls for renewed community prayer, Padre Pio encouraged from 1947 the formation of small Prayer Groups bringing together the faithful to pray for the pope's intentions and to support the hospital^[26]. The name "Prayer Groups" was fixed in 1950 in the bulletin of the Casa Sollievo^[27]. These groups, now spread throughout the world, prolong his intuition: prayer is not a flight from the world but the hidden motor of all real charity.

The Ignispedia encyclopedia, attentive to the spirituality of the Divine Will, notes a documented link — though resting on testimonies — between Padre Pio and the mystic of Corato Luisa Piccarreta. The two never met: Luisa was bedridden in Apulia, Padre Pio cloistered in the Gargano. But according to the collection of memoirs of Father Bernardino Bucci, gathering the recollections of Rosaria Bucci — who attended Luisa for some forty years —, Padre Pio held Luisa to be "a true woman of God" and sent her several of his spiritual sons, including the convert Federico Abresch, who became an apostle of the Divine Will^[28].

It is reported that Padre Pio sent visitors from Corato back to her — "You have Luisa, go to her" — and that he had transmitted to her, in the time of his own Roman trials, this word of solidarity in suffering:

"Dear Luisa, the saints serve for the good of souls, but their sufferings have no limits." — Message from Padre Pio to Luisa Piccarreta, reported by Rosaria Bucci^[29]

These words belong to the oral memory of a spiritual family, not to signed archives; they must be received for what they are, as a testimony of closeness between two great figures of twentieth-century southern sanctity, rather than as an established historical document.

The Cross and the victim soul

At the heart of everything, there is the Cross. Padre Pio understood himself as a victim soul, that is, a soul that freely offers itself with Christ for the conversion of sinners and the relief of others. His stigmata are, in this logic, only the visible translation of an interior union with the Passion that preceded their appearance by several years. He liked to repeat that suffering accepted out of love is fruitful, presenting the Cross as the book in which God writes each day and which must be read in order to learn^[30].

This spirituality of offering connects him to the great line of victim souls and stigmatics in the history of the Church, from Saint Francis of Assisi to Saint Gemma Galgani.

Mary and the rosary

Padre Pio was a man of the rosary. He recited it ceaselessly, up to dozens of rosaries a day, and presented it as his weapon. To a confrere who asked him for a final counsel, he is said to have recommended loving Our Lady, making her loved, and always reciting the rosary^[31]. His Marian devotion had nothing sentimental about it: it was a filial handing over of his whole life to her whom he simply called "Our Lady".

Abandonment and trust

Finally, despite the harshness of his interior combats — dryness, temptations, a sense of abandonment —, Padre Pio taught trust. This counsel — pray, hope, do not worry — was not a slogan: it was born from the experience of a tempted man who had chosen, again and again, to throw himself upon God. It is this same path of abandonment to God that he proposed to those he directed.

The last days

In the night of 22 to 23 September 1968, in San Giovanni Rotondo, Padre Pio died at the age of 81^[32]. On 20 September, he had celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his stigmata; exhausted, he celebrated his last Mass on the morning of 22 September^[33]. According to witnesses, his wounds had closed in his last days, leaving only intact skin. He died with his rosary in his hand, softly repeating the names he had served all his life: « Gesù… Maria… ». An immense crowd attended his funeral.

Venerable, blessed, saint

His cause, opened in 1983, came to fruition with remarkable speed, carried by worldwide devotion and by the personal conviction of John Paul II, who had met him and confessed to him in his youth. Padre Pio was declared Venerable on 18 December 1997, Blessed on 2 May 1999, then saint on 16 June 2002, under the name of Saint Pius of Pietrelcina^[34]. The canonization, in Saint Peter's Square, gathered one of the largest crowds in Vatican history. In his homily, the pope dwelt not on the wonders, but on the saint's conformity to the Cross:

"The life and work of Padre Pio bear witness that difficulty and pain, if accepted out of love, are transformed into a privileged path of holiness." — John Paul II, canonization homily, 16 June 2002^[35]

His body now rests in the sanctuary of San Giovanni Rotondo, which has become one of the greatest pilgrimage sites in the Catholic world. His liturgical feast is fixed on 23 September, the day of his death.

What the Church recognized

In canonizing Padre Pio, the Church did not first guarantee this or that wonder: she declared that a man had lived the Christian virtues to a heroic degree, and that his intercession was sure. The stigmata, the bilocations, the perfume remain signs — precious but secondary. The essential point, for the Catholic faith, is that a humble Capuchin friar, sickly and long under suspicion, made obedience, confession and suffering offered up the instruments of a spiritual fruitfulness that keeps on growing.

• The stigmata of Padre Pio — the phenomenon of the wounds, the medical examinations and the discernment of the Church.
• The sanctuary of Padre Pio in San Giovanni Rotondo — the convent, the churches, the Casa Sollievo, the tomb and the pilgrimage.
• Bilocations — the charism of presence in two places in the history of the saints.
• The stigmatics and Saint Gemma Galgani — the great line of souls configured to the Passion.
• Victim souls — the spirituality of reparatory offering.
• Confession and why confess to a priest — the sacrament at the heart of Padre Pio's ministry.
• The discernment of supernatural phenomena — how the Church judges wonders and mystics.