On the limestone promontory of the Gargano, the mountainous spur that forms the "spur" of the Italian boot, lies San Giovanni Rotondo, a small town in Apulia which at the beginning of the 20th century counted only a few thousand inhabitants around a Capuchin friary lost amid the stones. It was there that, on 4 September 1916, there arrived a young Capuchin Friar Minor of twenty-nine, Francesco Forgione, in religion Padre Pio — the one the world would soon know as the monk with pierced hands.[1][2] He would never leave this friary again until his death, on 23 September 1968.[3]
From this presence was born one of the greatest shrines in Christendom. Today people venerate there the preserved body of Saint Pius of Pietrelcina, displayed in a crypt covered with golden mosaics, at the heart of a vast pilgrimage church designed by the architect Renzo Piano. Around this tomb stand the old little church where Padre Pio received the stigmata in 1918, the friary and his cell, a new church dating from 1959, a monumental Way of the Cross on the hill, and a large hospital which he himself founded, the Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza.
The shrine of San Giovanni Rotondo holds a singular place in Catholic spiritual geography. At Lourdes or Fatima, it was an apparition of the Virgin that gave rise to the pilgrimage; here, as at the shrine of Ars, there is neither Marian apparition nor spring, but the holiness of a single man — his fifty years of stigmata, his unending confessions, his charisms and his charity. The figures often put forward make it, after the basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico, one of the most frequented Catholic pilgrimage sites in the world.[4][5]
This article presents the shrine as it is: how an obscure Gargano friary became, in Padre Pio's own lifetime, a place of pilgrimage; what the pilgrim sees there today — the three churches, the golden crypt, the friary, the Way of the Cross, the hospital; and the spiritual meaning of a place entirely ordered towards confession and the relief of suffering. For the life, charisms and canonization process of the saint, see the article Saint Pius of Pietrelcina; for the phenomenon of the wounds, The stigmata of Padre Pio.
San Giovanni Rotondo: a Gargano town become a pilgrimage capital
Padre Pio at the friary of Santa Maria delle Grazie (1916-1968)
When Padre Pio arrives at San Giovanni Rotondo, on 4 September 1916, the Santa Maria delle Grazie friary — Saint Mary of Graces — is a modest 16th-century Capuchin establishment, set apart from the town, on the slopes of Mount Castellana.[6][7] Weakened by fragile health, the young friar is sent there to breathe the dry mountain air. He will never leave it again: for fifty-two years, from 1916 to 1968, this friary will be his entire geographical horizon.
Two years after his arrival, on 20 September 1918, kneeling in the choir of the old church, before a large crucifix, the friar receives the stigmata: the five wounds of Christ open in his hands, his feet and his side, and will not close again until the approach of his death, half a century later.[8][9] It is this crucifix, kept on the spot, that makes the little church the historic nucleus of the shrine. The detailed account of this event and its discernment by the Church belong to the article The stigmata of Padre Pio.
Why a shrine grew up around a living friar
Like Ars in the previous century, San Giovanni Rotondo presents a rare particularity: the shrine already existed in the saint's lifetime. From the 1920s onwards, the reputation of the stigmatized friar attracts growing crowds; in the 1950s and 1960s, the flow becomes uninterrupted. People come from Italy, then from Europe and the whole world, often for a single thing: to confess to Padre Pio, or to attend his Mass. The village organizes itself around this influx — hotels, roads, services — well before any great basilica is built.
This anteriority explains the nature of the place. San Giovanni Rotondo is not a shrine built a posteriori around an ancient tomb, but a living pilgrimage which continued after 1968. Today's pilgrim walks in the footsteps of those who, in the friar's lifetime, already queued for hours before his confessional. The death of the saint, in 1968, did not dry up the movement: it fixed it upon his remains and upon the places of his life.
The friary and the old church: the historic heart
The Capuchin friary and the cell of the saint
The Santa Maria delle Grazie friary remains the living centre of the shrine: it is still inhabited by a community of Friars Minor Capuchin, who provide the welcome of pilgrims, the celebrations and the ministry of confessions. It is in this friary that Padre Pio lived, prayed, heard confessions and celebrated Mass for more than half a century.
The pilgrim can follow a route through the places of the saint: the old cloister, the choir, the sacristy, and above all the cell in which Padre Pio died, cell no. 5, preserved with its poor furnishings — the bed, the prie-dieu, a few objects of his daily life.[10] Part of the conventual wing still falls under religious enclosure; access to the memorial places follows an itinerary marked out by the Capuchins. These places give the pilgrimage its biographical dimension: one does not only venerate a distant saint, one visits the house where he lived and the room where he died.
The old church and the crucifix of the stigmata
At the heart of the shrine stands the old church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, a small 16th-century building adjoining the friary.[11][12] It is there that Padre Pio celebrated his Masses — sometimes several hours long —, there that he spent hours in the confessional, and there, in the choir, stands the crucifix before which he received the stigmata on 20 September 1918.[13][14] This tiny church, designed for a country friary, soon proved too small for the crowds: it is what called for the building of the two following churches.
The confessional and the relics
What made San Giovanni Rotondo a shrine is above all the confessional. Padre Pio spent long hours there each day, receiving penitents from all over Italy and beyond; one sometimes waited several days for one's turn.[15] The confessional he used is preserved and venerated: it recalls that the reconciliation of sinners was the heart of his ministry, and remains the raison d'être of the place.
The shrine also keeps relics connected with the saint and his wounds: the brownish woollen mittens with which he covered his stigmatized hands, cloths marked with blood, objects of his daily life, displayed in the museum areas of the friary. The veneration of these relics, like that of the body itself, belongs to the Catholic tradition of the cult of saints; on its meaning and limits, see Why venerate relics?.
The three churches of the shrine
The shrine of San Giovanni Rotondo is not a single monument, but a superimposition of three churches of very different ages and sizes, built as the crowds grew. The table below gives an overview.
| Church | Date | Capacity | What the pilgrim finds there |
|---|---|---|---|
| Old church of Santa Maria delle Grazie | 16th century | very small | The choir and the crucifix of the stigmata; the place of Padre Pio's Masses and confessions |
| New church of Santa Maria delle Grazie | 1956-1959 | a few thousand | Built to absorb the crowds; long the place of the saint's tomb |
| San Pio pilgrimage church (Renzo Piano) | 1998-2004 | ~6,500 seated (≈30,000 on the forecourt) | The great contemporary church and the crypt where the saint's body now rests |
The new church of Santa Maria delle Grazie (1959)
From the mid-1950s onwards, the old church no longer suffices. A new church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, much vaster, is built from 1956 onwards to the plans of the architect Giuseppe Gentile, and consecrated on 1 July 1959 by the bishop of Foggia.[16][17] Adjoining the old one, it became for several decades the centre of worship: it is in its crypt that Padre Pio was first buried after his death in 1968, and it is there, in that crypt of Santa Maria delle Grazie, that John Paul II knelt at his tomb in 1987.[18]
The San Pio pilgrimage church, by Renzo Piano (2004)
At the end of the 20th century, the crowds — now counted in millions — called for a church on a quite different scale. The project was entrusted to one of the greatest contemporary architects, the Genoese Renzo Piano. Designed from the 1990s onwards and built essentially between 1998 and 2004, the San Pio of Pietrelcina pilgrimage church was consecrated on 1 July 2004.[19][20][21]
The building is one of the vastest churches built in the 20th-21st century: it can hold some 6,500 faithful seated, and its communicating forecourt extends the assembly to some 30,000 people for the great celebrations.[22][23] Its structure rests on a crown of Apricena stone arches, a beige Apulian limestone chosen as the single material of the whole: twenty-one arches interlock in two concentric rings to carry the roof.[24] The master arch, with a span of about 45.80 metres, is presented as the largest stone arch in the world, its stability being ensured by steel cables concealed in the stone.[25][26]
"The choice of Apricena stone as the sole building material of the new church was fundamental: it makes it a homogeneous whole." — Renzo Piano Building Workshop, presentation of the Padre Pio pilgrimage church project[27]
The result is a resolutely contemporary church, at once immense and luminous, in sharp break with the architecture of traditional shrines — a choice that has nourished debate and admiration, but which answers first of all a pastoral necessity: to shelter the crowds of one of the foremost pilgrimages in the world.
The tomb of Saint Pio and the golden crypt
The 2008 exhumation and the exposition of the body
Forty years after his death, in the context of the procedures connected with the cult of the saints, the body of Padre Pio was exhumed on 3 March 2008.[28][29] The medical examination described a body in a good state of preservation, without however using the word incorruption in the strict sense; to allow the exposition, the face, marked by time, was covered with a silicone mask modelled in his likeness, made by a specialised British company.[30] From 24 April 2008 onwards, the body was exposed to the veneration of the faithful, attracting hundreds of thousands of pilgrims.[31]
One must be precise, for popular language sometimes exaggerates: people often speak of the "incorrupt body" of Padre Pio, but the Church has never made this preservation into a tale of marvel. To situate this case within the Catholic tradition, more nuanced than is often thought, see Incorrupt bodies.
The transfer to the crypt (2010)
On 19 April 2010, the body of Saint Pio was transferred to a new crypt, laid out beneath Renzo Piano's church, where it now rests in a glass sepulchre, visible to pilgrims.[32][33] This crypt has become the culminating point of the pilgrimage: it is towards it that the crowd converges, down a long descending ramp, to pray before the saint.
The mosaics of the crypt
The crypt and the ramp leading down to it are entirely covered with golden mosaics, unfolding scenes from the life of Saint Francis of Assisi and the life of Padre Pio.[34][35] This monumental ensemble is the work of the artist Marko Ivan Rupnik and the workshop of the Centro Aletti in Rome, whose style — hieratic figures on a gold ground, inherited from Byzantine art — adorns many contemporary shrines.[36][37] The gold enveloping the tomb is meant to signify the heavenly glory into which the Church believes the saint has entered: the crypt is not a burial vault, but a space of light ordered towards prayer.
The Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza: "relieving suffering"
The shrine of San Giovanni Rotondo cannot be understood without the work of charity attached to it. Convinced that prayer and care of the body had to go hand in hand, Padre Pio had a great hospital built, a few steps from the friary: the Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza — the "Home for the Relief of Suffering" —, inaugurated on 5 May 1956.[38][39]
The establishment has never stopped growing. It is today one of the great hospitals of Italy: a recognised institute of care and research (Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico, IRCCS), with more than a thousand beds, where tens of thousands of sick people are treated each year.[40][41] Padre Pio wanted this place to be at once a temple of science and of prayer, where the sick person meets, in his own suffering, the suffering Christ.[42]
This dimension is essential: at San Giovanni Rotondo, holiness was not only contemplative, but embodied in concrete service of the poor and the sick. The hospital is an integral part of the shrine, as La Providence is at Ars: it prolongs in stone and in care what the saint lived in his confessional.
The monumental Way of the Cross by Francesco Messina
On the wooded slope of Mount Castellana, behind the friary, stretches a vast open-air Way of the Cross, one of the largest in Christendom. The work of the Sicilian sculptor Francesco Messina (1900-1995), it was begun in 1968 — only a few days before Padre Pio's death — and completed in the following years; its bronze stations, set along the climb, combine sculpture, granite and landscape.[43][44]
This Way of the Cross offers the pilgrim a space for meditation apart from the great churches: one climbs the hill following the Passion of Christ, in a natural setting that recalls how Padre Pio's whole life — his stigmata, his offered sufferings, his hospital — was one long configuration to the Crucified.
One of the greatest pilgrimages in the world
Attendance figures
San Giovanni Rotondo has become one of the foremost Catholic pilgrimage sites in the world. The figures generally quoted put attendance at more than six to seven million visitors and pilgrims a year, which would make it, according to several sources, the most frequented Catholic shrine after the basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico.[45][46] These estimates must be handled with caution — they do not rest on a single official count —, but they give the order of magnitude: for a town of about twenty-seven thousand inhabitants, the influx is considerable and continuous throughout the year.[47][48]
The shrine and the popes
The influence of the shrine also owes much to the attention paid to it by the popes. Tradition reports that the young Polish priest Karol Wojtyła — the future John Paul II — came to meet Padre Pio and confess to him around 1947-1948, while he was studying in Rome; the account of a prophetic word foretelling his future pontificate belongs to popular devotion and must be received with reserve, but the spiritual bond between the two saints is well attested.[49][50]
Having become pope, John Paul II returned to San Giovanni Rotondo on 23 May 1987: he went down into the crypt of Santa Maria delle Grazie and prayed kneeling on the tomb of Padre Pio — then a simple "servant of God" not yet beatified.[51] It was he who beatified him on 2 May 1999, then canonized him on 16 June 2002, in Saint Peter's Square, before immense crowds.[52][53]
His successors confirmed this favour. Benedict XVI came to the shrine on 21 June 2009; after recollecting himself before the Blessed Sacrament, he visited the cell where the saint had died, then went down to venerate his mortal remains.[54] Taking up the words of Pope Paul VI, he recalled what made the friar's influence:
"See what fame he had, what crowds gathered around him throughout the world! But why? […] Because he was a man of prayer and suffering." — Paul VI, words of 1971 on Padre Pio, quoted by Benedict XVI, homily at San Giovanni Rotondo, 21 June 2009[55]
Finally, on 17 March 2018, Pope Francis in turn came to San Giovanni Rotondo — after stopping at Pietrelcina, the saint's birthplace — to mark the centenary of the permanent stigmata (1918) and the fiftieth anniversary of the death (1968).[56] He prayed in silence before the saint's body and recalled the meaning of the whole shrine:
"It is prayer, the united force of all good souls, that moves the world, that renews consciences." — Pope Francis, homily at San Giovanni Rotondo, 17 March 2018[57]
The relics on pilgrimage (2016)
The shrine does not hold a monopoly on the saint's presence. For the Jubilee of Mercy, Pope Francis asked that the bodies of Saint Pio of Pietrelcina and Saint Leopold Mandić — two Capuchins, "apostles of the confessional" — be brought to Rome: they arrived on 3 February 2016 at the basilica of Saint Lawrence Outside the Walls, were present on 10 February for the sending forth of the "missionaries of mercy", and passed through Saint Peter's Basilica before returning to San Giovanni Rotondo.[58] The choice was anything but fortuitous: it designated, in these two tireless confessors, the heart of the Jubilee — the mercy of God offered to the penitent.
The spirituality of the shrine
The shrine cannot be understood without the spiritual doctrine of which it is the home. Padre Pio left no treatises, but letters, counsels and brief sayings, gathered by his spiritual children, which the Church has made her own. Three axes form its heart.
Confession and reconciliation
San Giovanni Rotondo is above all a great place of confession, in direct continuity with the ministry that founded it. Padre Pio spent most of his days in the confessional; people came to him from very far to receive absolution and counsel that was often abrupt, always laden with mercy. Even today, priests there administer the sacrament of reconciliation in several languages, and the line of penitents remains unbroken. On the meaning of this sacrament, see Why confess to a priest?.
Eucharist and adoration
Padre Pio's Mass — long, recollected, sometimes shaken with tears — has remained legendary; it was the centre of his day. The shrine prolongs this centrality of the Eucharist: Mass is celebrated there unceasingly, and eucharistic adoration holds a great place there. The saint's most famous saying sums up his spirit, made of abandoned trust:
"Pray, hope and do not worry." — Saint Pio of Pietrelcina, spiritual motto handed down by his spiritual children[59]
Offered suffering and charity
Lastly, the whole shrine is marked by the mystery of offered suffering. Stigmatized for fifty years, Padre Pio saw in his wounds a participation in the Passion of Christ for the salvation of souls; and it was this same conviction that made him build a hospital, so that the suffering of the sick might be relieved and united to that of Christ. Shortly before the inauguration of the Casa Sollievo, he urged his spiritual children:
"Pray much, my children, pray always, never tiring." — Saint Pio of Pietrelcina, 5 May 1966, quoted by Pope Francis, San Giovanni Rotondo, 17 March 2018[60]
Beside Lourdes or Guadalupe, which prolong a Marian apparition, San Giovanni Rotondo remains a shrine of another kind: one where people venerate, not a sign come down from heaven, but the holiness of a man crucified in his flesh — proof that a humble friar, shut away for fifty years in a friary on the Gargano, could, through confession and charity, touch the whole world.
To go further
- Saint Pio of Pietrelcina (1887-1968) — the complete biography of the saint: childhood in Pietrelcina, Capuchin vocation, charisms, trial and canonization.
- The stigmata of Padre Pio — the event of 20 September 1918, the investigations and the discernment of the Church.
- Bilocations — one of the charisms attributed to Padre Pio and other saints.
- Incorrupt bodies — to situate, more nuanced than is often thought, the case of Saint Pio's preserved body.
- Why venerate relics? — the meaning of venerating the saint's body and objects.
- Confession — the sacrament at the heart of the shrine of San Giovanni Rotondo.
- The shrine of Ars — another great shrine born of the holiness of a single confessor.
Notes and References
Arrival of Padre Pio (Francesco Forgione, 1887-1968) at the Capuchin friary of Santa Maria delle Grazie at San Giovanni Rotondo on 4 September 1916, where he remained until his death on 23 September 1968. Concordant data: Padre Pio, reference encyclopaedia entry (en.wikipedia.org); shrine websites (santuariopadrepio.it; conventosantuariopadrepio.it).
1 6Padre Pio, reference encyclopaedia entry (en.wikipedia.org / fr.wikipedia.org), cross-checked with the official shrine websites: stigmata received on 20 September 1918 in the choir of the old church, presence of the wounds for some fifty years, death on 23 September 1968, beatification on 2 May 1999 and canonization on 16 June 2002 by John Paul II.
2 3 8 14 52Italia.it (official Italian tourism portal), "The Sanctuary of Padre Pio" / "Sanctuary of Saint Pio", and pilgrimage sources: attendance estimated at more than seven million people a year, San Giovanni Rotondo being presented as one of the most visited Catholic shrines in the world, after the basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe (Mexico). Estimates to be handled with caution (no single official count).
4 9 15 45 48Italia.it, page on the shrine of Saint Pio of Pietrelcina (province of Foggia, Apulia): presentation of the complex (friary, old and new church, Renzo Piano church), of the Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza and of the scale of the pilgrimage.
5 46Santuario di Santa Maria delle Grazie (San Giovanni Rotondo), encyclopaedia entry (it.wikipedia.org) and official shrine website: 16th-century Capuchin friary on the slopes of Mount Castellana, old church, new church built from 1956 and consecrated in 1959.
7 11 17Presentation of Padre Pio's places by the friary-shrine (conventosantuariopadrepio.it; vocedipadrepio.com): Padre Pio occupied cell no. 5 of the friary from his arrival in 1916 until his death in 1968; the cell, preserved with its furniture, is part of the visit route, part of the conventual wing still falling under religious enclosure.
10Santuario di Santa Maria delle Grazie, official presentation (padrepioesangiovannirotondo.it; conventosantuariopadrepio.it): the 16th-century old church, the choir and the crucifix before which Padre Pio received the stigmata on 20 September 1918.
12 13Construction of the new church of Santa Maria delle Grazie from 1956 to the plans of the architect Giuseppe Gentile, consecrated on 1 July 1959 by the bishop of Foggia (it.wikipedia.org, Santuario di Santa Maria delle Grazie; shrine sources). The crypt of this church first housed Padre Pio's tomb after 1968.
16John Paul II, pastoral visit to San Giovanni Rotondo on 23 May 1987: prayer kneeling on Padre Pio's tomb in the crypt of Santa Maria delle Grazie. Reference: homily of John Paul II, Concelebrazione Eucaristica a San Giovanni Rotondo, 23 May 1987, full text on vatican.va (document dated 19870523). The same pope beatified Padre Pio on 2 May 1999 and canonized him on 16 June 2002.
18 50 51 53Renzo Piano Building Workshop, project page "Padre Pio Pilgrimage Church" (rpbw.com): pilgrimage church at San Giovanni Rotondo, designed from the 1990s and inaugurated on 1 July 2004; capacity of about 6,500 seats inside and up to about 30,000 people on the forecourt; structure of Apricena stone arches, the sole material of the building. Original English text: "The decision to use Apricena stone as the sole building material for the new church was fundamental and rendered it a homogeneous whole."
19 22 26 27ArchDaily, "Padre Pio Pilgrimage Church / Renzo Piano Building Workshop" (archdaily.com): technical description — twenty-one Apricena stone arches arranged in two concentric rings (inner and outer) carrying the roof; master arch with a span of about 45.80 m and a maximum interior height of about 15.70 m, presented as the largest stone arch in the world, stabilized by steel cables; capacity of about 6,500 seats and up to 30,000 people with the forecourt.
20 23 24 25San Giovanni Rotondo, encyclopaedia entry (en.wikipedia.org): town in the province of Foggia (Apulia) of about 27,000 inhabitants on the Gargano promontory; Renzo Piano's San Pio church built around 1998-2004, capacity of 6,500 seats and 30,000 standing; transfer of the saint's body to the shrine in 2010.
21 47Exhumation of Padre Pio's body on 3 March 2008, forty years after his death, in the context of the procedures connected with the cult; recognition of a body in a good state of preservation, face covered with a silicone mask made by a British company to allow the exposition; public exposition of the body from 24 April 2008. Sources: Remains of St Padre Pio exhumed in Italy (The Irish Times, 2008); press coverage (NBC News, 2008); Catholic News Agency, Padre Pio's incorrupt body is in Rome — here's why (2016).
28 30 31(source introuvable : cna-2016)
29Transfer of Saint Pio's body to the new crypt laid out beneath Renzo Piano's church on 19 April 2010; crypt and access ramp entirely covered with golden mosaics depicting the life of Saint Francis of Assisi and that of Padre Pio. Sources: La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno, "Il corpo di Padre Pio torna nella chiesa nuova"; padrepiodapietrelcina.com, "Padre Pio's Tomb".
32 34 36padrepiodapietrelcina.com, "Padre Pio's Tomb — Where Padre Pio's body can be found": the body of Saint Pio rests in the crypt of the San Pio church, in a sepulchre visible to pilgrims, within a ensemble of golden mosaics running down the ramp towards the crypt.
33 35The mosaics of the crypt and the ramp are the work of the artist Marko Ivan Rupnik and the workshop of the Centro Aletti (Rome), whose neo-Byzantine style adorns many contemporary shrines. The artist has since been the subject of grave accusations and canonical sanctions (dismissal from the Society of Jesus in 2023), which has sparked debate on keeping his works in places of worship; this point belongs to current ecclesial news and not to the history of the shrine itself.
37Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza, official presentation (operapadrepio.it; padrepioesangiovannirotondo.it) and encyclopaedia entries: hospital founded by Padre Pio, inaugurated on 5 May 1956; today a recognised institute of care and research (IRCCS) with more than a thousand beds, one of the great hospital establishments of Italy.
38 40padrepioesangiovannirotondo.it, "Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza, l'ospedale di Padre Pio": Padre Pio wanted the hospital to be a place of science and prayer where the sick person meets, in his suffering, the suffering Christ; the work is managed by the Opera di Padre Pio.
39 41 42padrepioesangiovannirotondo.it, "Via Crucis monumentale dello scultore Francesco Messina", and visitsangiovannirotondo.eu, "I monumenti di Francesco Messina": monumental Way of the Cross on the slope of Mount Castellana, work of the sculptor Francesco Messina, begun in 1968 (shortly before Padre Pio's death); bronze stations, granite and marble, among the largest Ways of the Cross in the Christian world.
43Francesco Messina (1900-1995), Italian sculptor of Sicilian origin, author of many religious and monumental works; designer of the monumental Way of the Cross and of other monuments of San Giovanni Rotondo (visitsangiovannirotondo.eu).
44Meeting of the young priest Karol Wojtyła (the future John Paul II) with Padre Pio at San Giovanni Rotondo, traditionally situated around 1947-1948, during his Roman studies; the account of a prophetic word foretelling his pontificate belongs to popular devotion and is not historically established. Sources: "Giovanni Paolo II e Padre Pio" (saintpiofoundation.org; acistampa.com); to be received with the caution required for hagiographical anecdotes.
49Benedict XVI, pastoral visit and homily at San Giovanni Rotondo, 21 June 2009, full text on vatican.va: the pope recalls, quoting Paul VI (1971), that Padre Pio was "a man of prayer and suffering". Original English text of the passage quoted: "he was a man of prayer and suffering." The same visit included a time of adoration, the visit of the cell of the saint's death and the veneration of his mortal remains.
54 55Pope Francis, pastoral visit to Pietrelcina and San Giovanni Rotondo on 17 March 2018, on the occasion of the centenary of the permanent stigmata (1918) and the fiftieth anniversary of the death (1968) of Saint Pio; homily on vatican.va and coverage by Vatican News. Quotations: "It is prayer, the united force of all good souls, that moves the world, that renews consciences" (original English text of the homily); and Padre Pio's exhortation of 5 May 1966, "Pray a lot, my children, pray always, never tiring", taken up by the pope.
56 57 60Translation of the bodies of Saint Pio of Pietrelcina and Saint Leopold Mandić to Rome for the Jubilee of Mercy: arrival on 3 February 2016 at the basilica of Saint Lawrence Outside the Walls, presence on 10 February (Ash Wednesday) for the sending forth of the "missionaries of mercy", passage through Saint Peter's Basilica. Sources: Catholic News Agency, Padre Pio's incorrupt body is in Rome — here's why (3 February 2016); National Catholic Register, Incorrupt Bodies of Sts. Pio and Leopold Arrive in Rome for Jubilee of Mercy (2016).
58Spiritual motto traditionally attributed to Padre Pio and widely spread by his spiritual children and the Opera di Padre Pio. Original Italian text: "Prega, spera e non ti agitare."
59