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Chapter Three

Fra Pio

The Capuchins

The Order of Friars Minor Capuchin traces its origin to Saint Francis of Assisi (c. 1181–1226), who, in 1206, organized a community of men “to observe the Holy Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ by living in obedience, without property, and in chastity.”¹ Padre Pio was not a “monk,” but a “friar” (the word means “brother”) — a member of a mendicant, not a monastic, order.

The mendicant orders forbade their members from owning any property, even in common. They were to support themselves through their own labor and the charity of the faithful. In fact, “mendicant” comes from the Latin word meaning “to beg,” and mendicant brothers solicite material sustenance through begging. In addition to lives of contemplation and spiritual exercises, members of mendicant orders engage in active service to the community. Unlike a monk, who remains in one place, a mendicant friar may be assigned to any number of residences, called friaries or convents. Padre Pio remained in one convent for more than fifty years, but this was unusual. (The terms “friary,” “convent,” and “monastery” were used interchangeably.) The distinction, however, between a monk and a friar is appreciated by few outside the religious orders, and for most people, Padre Pio was a “monk.”

Most of the friars in the monastery Francesco Forgione entered in 1903 were comparatively young men. The Capuchin order in Italy was just then recovering from more than two decades of suppression by the Italian government. The middle of the nineteenth century had seen a tide of anticlerical sentiment swamp much of Europe. This was a time of rampant nationalism that eventually would explode into World War I. Since the Church had great temporal power and exerted political control over much of central Italy, it found itself the scapegoat for many nationalistic politicians who insisted that the Church was the enemy of the state. Since Catholics were bound in allegiance to the pope, who in those days was the head of the Papal States (a sovereign state), many European leaders, especially in the newly independent countries of Germany and Italy, considered the Catholic Church and its institutions subversive. During the 1860s and 1870s, both countries tried to weaken the Church’s power, and one of the ways they did this was by suppressing the religious orders.

The problem was especially bad in Italy, where the central part of the peninsula had been torn from the political control of the papacy in spite of the vehement opposition by Pope Pius IX, who reigned from 1846 to 1878 and did not hesitate to use excommunication as a weapon against politicians who trod roughshod over the ancient privileges and prerogatives of the Church. Count Cavour, who became Italy’s first prime minister in 1861, considered all religious orders “useless and harmful,”² and Giuseppe Garibaldi, liberator of southern Italy from the control of the Bourbon monarchy, called priests “wolves” and “assassins” and characterized the pope as “not a true Christian.”³ Some Italian politicians, in fact, called for the army to storm the Vatican and throw members of the College of Cardinals into the Tiber.⁴

Faced with such violent sentiment, in 1864 Pius IX criticized “Liberalism” in his “Syllabus of Errors,” arguing against religious toleration, freedom of conscience, and freedom of the press, and denying that the pontiff had any need to accommodate himself to “progress,” “Liberalism,” or even “modern civilization.”⁵

Partly in retaliation, but mostly as a means of raising money, the Italian government legislated in 1866 the dissolution of all religious orders and the confiscation of all their lands and goods. The Capuchin order maintained many of the 38,000 religious institutions that were closed down, with their assets sold to raise money for the Italian government. The friars were forced to become secular clergy, go abroad, or operate in secret.

The policy of selling Church property proved a failure, as most peasants were too poor to buy the parcels of land offered for sale, and the use for confiscated churches, monasteries, and convents was extremely limited. After some twenty years, the state relented, and the Capuchins and other religious orders were once again allowed to wear their habits, live by their Rule, and eventually reclaim most of their churches and convents.

The task of reorganizing the more than a dozen friaries in the Capuchin province of Sant’Angelo, in the “heel” of Italy’s boot, fell to the learned and devout Padre Pio Nardone of Benevento (1842–1908), who had ministered in England and India during the time of suppression. Assuming the position of minister provincial (administrator) of the province, he actively recruited young men to restore the death-depleted ranks of the order. He saw to it that the province maintained its ascetical rigor, which prior to the suppression had been among the strictest in all of Italy. Before its dissolution, it was said that many of the friars had “died in the odor of sanctity.”

The Novice

For Francesco, as for all religious who were preparing for the priesthood, there was a double formation program: the “religious,” which prepared him for community life, and the “ecclesiastical,” which prepared him for the priesthood. The ecclesiastical program of studies at that time was usually determined by the student’s previous education.

When Francesco arrived at the convent at Morcone, he was shown to a tiny cell in which there was a mattress filled with corn husks and supported by four wooden planks; a little table; a chair; a washstand; a jug for water; and, on the wall, a wooden cross. This first stage of religious life, known as the novitiate, has been compared to “boot camp” in the life of a soldier. Like other novices, Francesco was directed to spend several days in solitary meditation.

On January 22, 1903, sixteen days after his arrival, Francesco was “invested” as a religious, kneeling at the foot of the altar before the master of novices, the formidable Padre Tommaso of Monte Sant’Angelo (1872–1932). His outer clothing was removed as the master declared, “May the Lord strip from you the old man and all his actions.” As Francesco put on his Franciscan tunic, Padre Tommaso prayed, “May the Lord reclothe you in the new man who is created according to God, in justice, holiness, and truth.” As he put on the hood with its caperon, or small scapular, the novice master said, “May the Lord put the hood of salvation upon your head to defeat the wiles of the devil.” And when Francesco wrapped the cord around his waist, the novice master prayed, “May the Lord gird you with the cordon of purity and extinguish within your loins the fire of lust so that the virtues of continence and chastity might abide in you.” Then the master gave the novice a candle, enjoining him, “Take the light of Christ as a sign of your immortality so that, dead to the world, you might live in God. Rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light!”⁶

The crown of Francesco’s head was shaved, as well as the bottom of his hairline, leaving a circlet of hair around the skull. This was the “tonsure,” worn by most religious in many parts of Europe until the early 1970s, although photographs show that religious frequently allowed their hair to grow out for long periods of time. The custom supposedly dated from Roman times, when the heads of slaves were routinely shaved. Religious wore the tonsure in token of the fact that they were slaves of Christ.

Francesco received a religious name, apparently completely the choice of the superiors. From now on Francesco would be Fra (or Brother) Pio. Many believe that he was named in honor of the father provincial, Pio of Benevento.

By the end of Padre Pio’s life, most Capuchins were known by their family names. Father Solanus Casey, an American Capuchin, renowned as a mystic and servant of the poor (who was beatified in 2017), was nearly two decades Pio’s senior, but was always known by his family name, as Capuchins typically were in the United States. So was the famous Irish Capuchin and temperance advocate Father Theobald Mathew, who died in 1856. In Italy, however, well into the twentieth century, Capuchins were known by their place of birth rather than their surname. And so, Francesco Forgione became Pio of Pietrelcina for everyone — except the Italian government, which did not recognize religious names. When he had to sign a legal document, he wrote, “Padre Pio da Pietrelcina, al secolo Francesco Forgione.” When he was drafted into the army during World War I, Padre Pio came close to being arrested for desertion when he was home in Pietrelcina on sick leave and orders came for “Francesco Forgione” to report for duty. By that time, everybody knew him as Padre Pio and the message did not get to him.

Since the sixteenth century, the friary at Morcone was the place where Padre Pio’s province of Foggia trained its novices. The friary there in 1903 was the home of about fifty religious. It had no central heating, but on the coldest winter nights, after Compline, the religious could gather before the fireplace to warm themselves before returning to their freezing rooms.

The Capuchin Constitutions specified that the senior members of the community, with the exception of the father guardian (the local superior) and the novice master, were to avoid unnecessary communication with the novices. While the other friars wore sandals, novices were required to go barefoot. Every night, except on Sundays, a bell awakened the friars a half hour after midnight. The sleepy men made their way through the corridors of the convent to the chapel, there to prepare for the Divine Office — the prayers and psalms, offered seven times daily, that characterized the life of nearly all religious communities at that time. In “devotion, recollection, mortification, quiet, and silence,” as the Constitutions specified, they strove to “remember that they [were] in the presence of God and employ themselves in the angelic exercise of singing the divine praises.” After praying the first two hours of the Office, Matins and Lauds, the friars went back to bed.

This repose did not last long, for they had to rise again at 5:00 a.m. Each made his bed and placed a crucifix on it to make it look like a coffin. Then they went to the choir to pray the Angelus, a prayer which begins with the words, “The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary … ” commemorating the Incarnation of Christ. This was followed by the Litany of the Saints. Then the community meditated for half an hour, spending time in mental prayer for the pope, the salvation of souls, the conversion of unbelievers, and the impartation of wisdom to cardinals, bishops, prelates, kings, princes, and superiors. Then followed the Mass known as the Orazione, after which the friars prayed the canonical hours of Prime and Terce. This was followed by the community Mass known as the Messa Conventuale. At last it was time for the friars to be rewarded with a breakfast of boiled bread and oil, after which they went back to the choir to pray the Divine Office of Our Lady.

Then the novices went to confer with Padre Tommaso of Monte Sant’Angelo, the novice master. According to the Constitutions, the master of novices was to teach his charges to subdue their passions and acquire such virtues as humility, obedience, “angelic purity,” self-denial, sacrifice, love of poverty, and the spirit of mortification. He was to instruct them in the Capuchin Rule and the Breviary, which is the book that contains the Divine Office. He instructed them on the lives of the saints, especially those of the Capuchin order, and he supervised their memorization of the Rule. After their time with the master, it was time for the novices to study until they returned to the choir to recite the canonical hours of Sext and None.

At noon, the community, still in the choir, prayed the Angelus again before going to dinner. Both dinner and supper were frugal meals consisting chiefly of bread and stew. The novices frequently suffered from terrible hunger pangs during their first weeks in the community. During most meals, talking was forbidden. While the friars ate, a lesson from the Gospels was read, followed by the reading of the Rule of Saint Francis and then by another from some “pious book.”

From November 2 (All Souls’ Day) to Holy Saturday, except for the Christmas season, the friars fasted — that is, they were allowed one full meal (such as it was) daily, and two smaller ones that together were not to add up to a full meal. No meat was served apart from the main meal. In lax provinces, the friars made their full meal a huge feast of many courses; but in the province of Sant’Angelo in the early twentieth century, traditions were observed in all their ancient rigor. During weekdays in Lent, no meat was served at all, and on Lenten Fridays the friars were obliged to subsist on bread and water only. This was in accord with the teaching of Saint Francis that “it is difficult to satisfy necessity without yielding to sensuality.” Everything was calculated to draw the religious away from an attachment to earthly things — even necessities — and focus his mind on the things of the spirit.

After the midday meal, the community took a brief siesta. At 2:30 p.m. they recited Vespers in the choir and then spent some time doing chores, including manual labor. Even while scrubbing the latrine in the basement, the friars were to recite the Rosary aloud or sing hymns. When chores were over, the community recited the Vespers of Our Lady, after which the novices had another conference with Padre Tommaso. Then they were allowed to take “recreation” in the garden, which meant that they were somewhat free to converse about spiritual things. At 7:00 p.m. they prayed the Rosary in the choir. Then there was another half hour of meditation, more prayers, and Compline, the final canonical “hour” of the Divine Office. After Compline came supper, during which there were readings from the Old and New Testaments. Following the meal, while the rest of the community enjoyed a brief period of recreation, the novices met once more with Padre Tommaso for spiritual counsel. Finally, at 9:00 p.m., after a thirty-minute visit to the Blessed Sacrament in the church, the friars retired for the night. Before going to bed, each friar was expected to pray and examine his conscience. Novices were instructed to sleep on their back in their habit with their arms folded over their chest, in the form of a cross, the better to repel any assaults of the devil.

Throughout the day, the “Evangelical Silence” prevailed, which meant that even during periods of “recreation,” which consisted of two periods of one hour in the course of the day when conversation was permitted, the friars were forbidden to talk about worldly matters. The Great Silence, a total ban on all conversation whatsoever, except in cases of dire necessity, was strictly observed between 9:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. Anyone who willfully broke either the Evangelical or the Great Silence was required to pray five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys while lying on the floor with his arms extended in the form of a cross.

Great emphasis was placed on the practice of meditation, withdrawing attention from the material world and focusing mind and soul on God. The novices were taught to concentrate their psychic energies on one aspect of Divine Reality, such as one of the names or attributes of God, a passage of Scripture, or an event in the life of Christ. Not all the novices or even the older friars felt divine light break upon them as a result of this activity, but everyone was supposed to meditate the best one could.

Strict obedience to superiors was considered essential for anyone aspiring to the highest state of spirituality. It was part of giving up one’s will, dying to oneself. The Capuchin was at all times expected to learn and carry out as diligently as possible the will and desire of his superiors. “Obedience is everything for me,” Padre Pio wrote later in life. “God forbid that I should knowingly go against [a superior] who has been designated as my interior and exterior judge, even in the slightest way.”⁷ Padre Bernardino of Siena recalled that even as a very old man Padre Pio would ask his superiors for permission to do the most trivial things, such as getting his hair cut, changing his habit, and putting on his mantle in cold weather. What many would consider a pathetic lack of initiative and a disturbing dependency is in fact a virtue for those concerned with humility, selflessness, and surrender to the will of God. When, at one period in his life, he was accused of disobedience, Padre Pio cried, “If my superior ordered me to jump out of the window, I would not argue. I would jump!”⁸

Fra Pio and his fellow novices got plenty of opportunities to practice the virtues of humility and obedience under the not-so-tender care of the thirty-one-year-old novice master, Tommaso of Monte Sant’Angelo. A photograph of him taken around this time shows a scowling man with sunken eyes; a short, dark, neatly trimmed beard and moustache; and a grim downturned mouth. After his death at sixty, Padre Tommaso was characterized as a man “with a heart of gold, understanding, and full of charity to his novices.”⁹ His actions when Pio was a novice, however, are more reminiscent of a character straight out of a Dickens novel. Padre Tommaso felt that he had to carry out the rules of the Capuchin Constitutions to the letter, which prescribed that novices, along with all members of the community, “take the discipline” on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. This meant going to the choir, pulling up their habits, and striking themselves across the shoulders with a corded whip. The purpose was to subdue the sinful desires of the flesh, especially sexual passions, laziness, and inconstancy. During this exercise, the Constitutions directed the friars to meditate on the Passion of Christ.

Padre Tommaso, however, went a step further. He reportedly ordered the novices to whip themselves until their blood ran onto the floor. Moreover, without warning or apparent provocation, he would order the young novices to administer the discipline at any time or place. During meals, often he would order a hapless novice to go into a corner, strip, and flagellate himself until his back was a mass of bleeding flesh. The slightest infraction of the Rule was an occasion for harsh reproofs, mortifications, and heavy punishments. Sometimes Padre Tommaso would put a wooden collar around a novice’s neck, sometimes he would blindfold him, and sometimes he would make him eat off the ground. In the refectory, before eating his meager repast, each novice had to kneel at Padre Tommaso’s feet and beseech him, “Father, bless me.” If the master answered, “I bless you,” the novice could rise and take his place in the dining hall. But if the master remained silent, the boy had to stay there, kneeling on the cold floor until it was Padre Tommaso’s pleasure to dispose otherwise. Sometimes novices were forced to remain on their knees for the duration of the meal. For breaking just one of the rules, the master made novices eat bread and water from a plate on the ground, like a dog.¹⁰ Padre Tommaso never gave any explanations.¹¹ Fifty years later, Padre Pio tearfully recalled to a younger confrere, “One day the Master of the Novices declared [without any explanation], ‘Tomorrow there will be no Communion for you.’”¹²

Vincenzo Masone, one of Fra Pio’s two friends who entered the novitiate with him, was able to take the stifling regime only two months before he returned home. (The other boy, Bonavita, had been sent home almost immediately because he was judged to be too young.) Then there was a novice from Naples, whose name has not been recorded, who was made to kneel hungry, all through dinner, and muttered, “Back home in Naples we pay a dime to see madmen. Here we see them for free.” Padre Tommaso overheard this remark and ordered the boy to strip and take the discipline there and then. The boy refused, got up, and walked out of the convent, never to return.¹³

Fra Pio never complained. When another novice urged him to leave with him, insisting that the master was insane, even diabolical, Pio answered:

I could never agree to this. You’ll see, with Our Lady’s and St. Francis’ help, we too, little by little, will get used to this new life just as others before us did. Do you believe the friars here and elsewhere were not once like us? No one is born a friar.¹⁴

One of his confreres at the time recalled that Pio

… kept to the genuine spirit of his novitiate…. Quite often, when I went to his cell to call him, I found him on his knees at the end of his bed, or with his face buried in his hands over books. Sometimes he failed to appear in the choir for night office, and when I went to call him, I found him on his knees, deeply immersed in prayer. I never heard him complain of the poor food, although the friary could have given us something better. He never criticized the actions of his superiors, and when others did, he either rebuked them or else left their company. He never grumbled about the cold, which was really severe, or about the few blankets we were given. However, what struck me most about Fra Pio was his love of prayer.¹⁵

Another religious who knew him as a novice recalled that when Pio prayed, “he would weep many tears, so much so that very often the floor would be stained.”¹⁶

Fra Pio appreciated the need to mortify the flesh. A few years later, when writing to a spiritual daughter, he quoted Galatians 5:24, in which Saint Paul declares, “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” Pio wrote:

From this it is apparent that anyone who wants to be a true Christian … must fortify his flesh for no other reason than devotion to Jesus, who, for love of us, mortified his entire body on the cross. The mortification must be constant and steady, not intermittent, and it must last for one’s whole life. Moreover, the perfect Christian must not be satisfied with a kind of mortification which merely appears to be severe. He must make sure that it hurts … for … all the evils which hurt your soul can be traced to the failure to practice due mortification of the flesh, either through ignorance or lack of the will to do so. If you want to [achieve holiness] you must master your flesh and crucify it, for it is the source of all evil.¹⁷

As time went on, Pio would modify this position somewhat, as he realized that few people were capable of the degree of ascetical rigor that he imposed on himself.

Novices, in addition to showing detachment from all material pleasures, were supposed to distance themselves from family and friends. Too strong a desire on the part of a novice to see his family was taken as a sign that he lacked a genuine call from God to the order. Unfortunately, no one bothered to explain this practice to Fra Pio’s mother when she came one day to visit her son. Giuseppa was escorted into the guest room, and Fra Pio came down to meet her in the company of another friar, who sat a few feet away, immobile, with his head down and eyes lowered. Giuseppa was horrified that her son, instead of embracing her, sat with his hands in his sleeves, looking at the floor. When she gave him a number of presents, he showed no enthusiasm. “Thank you,” he said, coldly and quietly, “I will take them to my superior.”

Frustrated at her inability to draw her son into any kind of conversation, she cried, “Son, what’s the matter? Why have you become mute?” Giuseppa returned in tears to Pietrelcina without either Pio or any of his superiors making any explanation for his behavior. In later years, Padre Pio recalled, “As soon as I saw my mother, my impulse was to throw myself into her arms, but the discipline of the novitiate did not permit this.”¹⁸

It was around this time that Orazio returned home on a visit, and he was horrified at what his wife told him about their son. Hurrying to Morcone, he demanded and received an explanation from Padre Tommaso. He was mollified somewhat but still disturbed by what he thought was unduly harsh treatment of his son and others.

“An Example to All”

As a novice, Fra Pio attracted the favorable attention of his confreres and superiors because of his submissiveness and spiritual fervor. Even Padre Tommaso described him as “an exemplary novice … an example to all.”¹⁹ Fra Pio astounded Padre Tommaso by begging permission to be excused from recreation and even from meals in order to pray. So abstemious was Fra Pio that Padre Tommaso often had to command him to eat more. And when he was not praying, Fra Pio seemed to be reading the Bible, often on his knees.

Yet, despite his penances, Fra Pio was always cheerful, and people loved to be with him. When he was permitted to talk enough to display it, he revealed a vivid sense of humor. He loved to tell jokes. Nor was he averse to playing pranks.

One midnight, after the bell had awakened the community for Matins, Fra Pio was returning from the lavatory with a towel draped over his arm when he caught sight of another novice who was a nervous fellow, seemingly frightened of anything. Between them was a large, unlighted room. On a table in the room rested a pair of tall candlesticks that jingled whenever anyone walked by. Between the candlesticks was a hideous, terrifying skull, such as friaries and monasteries kept in those days to remind their residents of the transitory nature of life. Knowing the other novice was deathly afraid of the skull, Fra Pio hid behind the table in the dark, without the other boy noticing. When the boy passed, Fra Pio waved the towel in a ghostly manner and groaned a “mysterious lament.” The nervous novice took off down the corridor, screaming, while Fra Pio, afraid that they would be discovered by Padre Tommaso, ran after him, trying to calm him down. The terror-struck lad became hysterical when he heard footsteps behind him. When Fra Pio called his name, the fearful novice, absolutely beside himself, stumbled and fell, and his pursuer, unable to stop, fell right on top of him. “Quiet! Don’t be afraid! It’s just me,” Fra Pio said. The victim was so terrorized, “he didn’t even know where he was,” the prankster recounted years later.²⁰

In the next few years, whenever, for reasons of health that will be described later, Fra Pio was forced to return home, everyone in the friary where he lived was downcast. Even Padre Tommaso missed him. One friar recalled that his absence left “a great void in our friary and in our hearts, and we lived in hope that these absences would not be long.”²¹

At the end of the yearlong novitiate, the community held a Chapter to decide which novices should be invited to make their temporary vows and which should be dismissed. For nearly two weeks before the ceremony, Fra Pio’s anxiety was obvious to everyone, as he spent his time in prayer and tears.²² Finally, on January 22, 1904, Fra Pio went to the altar and knelt before minister provincial Padre Pio of Benevento. He folded his hands between those of the older man and declared, “I, Fra Pio of Pietrelcina, vow and promise to the Omnipotent God, to the Blessed Virgin Mary, to St. Francis, and to all the saints, and to you, Father, to observe for three years the Rule of the Friars Minor, confirmed by Pope Honorius, living in obedience, without property, and in chastity.”

Pio of Benevento answered, “And I, on the part of God, if you observe these things, promise you eternal life.”²³

Three days later, the boy whom his superiors described as one of “impeccable deportment” and notable for “the attraction he exerts on everyone with whom he has contact” left Morcone with the minister provincial and another young friar and journeyed twenty miles north to the town of Sant’Elia a Pianisi, to the friary of St. Francis of Assisi. Here Fra Pio was to commence six years of intensive study for the priesthood and prepare for his profession of solemn vows.

At that time and place, an aspirant to the priesthood in the Capuchin order was not required to earn a college degree (although a few did). He simply took required courses that were offered at the particular friary where the father lector qualified to teach that course happened to be residing. Therefore, during his course of study, a candidate for the priesthood could expect to be transferred to several friaries within the province, to be instructed in logic, philosophy, Sacred Scripture, dogmatic and moral theology, pastoral theology, Church history, patrology, canon law, and the Rule. After ordination, a priest was expected to study “sacred eloquence” for a year. If he wanted permission to preach (and not all priests had this), he had to take further course work and then submit to an examination for a preaching license. Students were generally not issued books, which the province could not afford, but were allowed to share the text from which the teacher lectured. The students were expected to take notes in preparation for an oral exam and a written paper.²⁴

In 1905, Fra Pio was sent to the friary at San Marco la Catola, a little town built around a ruined castle, some ten miles southeast of Sant’Elia, to study philosophy. In 1906, he was back at Sant’Elia for further studies in logic and philosophy. It was there, the following year, that he pronounced his solemn, or permanent vows, ratifying the promise of three years previous to live the rest of his life in poverty, chastity, and obedience in accordance with the Rule of the Friars Minor. After that, he was sent to Serracapriola, about twenty miles northeast of Sant’Elia, to study Church history and patrology under Padre Agostino of San Marco in Lamis, and fundamental theology and biblical hermeneutics with Padre Bonaventura of San Giovanni Rotondo. The following year he traveled some seventy miles to Montefusco, near the west coast of Italy, to study Sacred Scripture, Church history, and patrology under Padre Agostino and dogmatic theology under Padre Bernadino of San Giovanni Rotondo. The latter later described him as an “ordinary student,” though he was impressed by the young man’s conduct: “Amidst the lively, noisy students, he was quiet and calm, even during recreation. He was always humble, meek, and obedient.”²⁵ In 1909, Pio went to Gesualdo to study canon law with Padre Bonaventura.²⁶

“Let Me Know Who in the House Has Satisfied the Easter Duty”

It is not clear how often Fra Pio saw his parents, but it probably was not often. He wrote them letters like the following undated one, which seems formal, distant, formulaic, and preachy:

Meanwhile I wish you a very long life, adorned with every prosperity, and full of blessings, celestial and terrestrial. This and nothing else is my prayer that I lift up to Jesus these days, and I will be happy if it is pleasing to the Lord, that you carry out, with all his blessings, these requests of mine.

Therefore I hope that you will not be among those Christians spending all Easter in purely sensual pleasure, because this is completely contrary to the spirit and law of Jesus Christ; but instead, I exhort you to walk always more on the road of God, remembering that sooner or later we must present ourselves at the tribunal of God.

To this end, therefore, I exhort you not to neglect your Easter duty, the only means of our health. Therefore let me know who in the house has satisfied the Easter duty.²⁷

Early in 1908, Pio received a letter from his father, who was back in Pietrelcina for the wedding of Pio’s brother Michele to Giuseppa Cardone, but he answered that he was too busy to attend:

Dearest Father,

I respond at once to your dear letter, rejoicing with you that everybody there is in good health.

I’m very pleased about my brother’s upcoming wedding, and therefore I wish for a good celebration. Also, I would like to assist at the wedding celebration, if it were possible; unfortunately, because, as you have to know, these days I’m a bit busy with my exams, that will take place in days, so that I can stand, therefore, before the bishop to receive minor orders. Now you understand very well that it will be impossible for me [to come]. Perhaps [if it weren’t] for this circumstance, it would be easy for me to satisfy you. Anyway, don’t be upset that I’m not there; think instead that if God assists me, the day will come [when] I promise to give you a consolation greater than that I would be able to give you if [I were] present at the celebration of this wedding.²⁸

A year after his wedding, Michele Forgione sailed to New York from Naples on the ship Madonna, reaching Ellis Island on May 12, 1909.²⁹ Orazio also returned to the United States, although, as before, there is no record of him.

Pio and the Bible

By the time Fra Pio was beginning his studies for the priesthood, nontraditional religious thinking was making inroads in nearly all Christian denominations. Biblical scholars of the Modernist movement were seeking to reinterpret Catholic doctrine in light of modern science and philosophy. Questioning the inerrancy of Scripture, they contended that the writers of both Old and New Testaments were conditioned by the times in which they lived and that, therefore, religious truth was subject to a constant evolutionary process. Rather than spirituality and the inner life emphasized by many traditional religious leaders, both Catholic and Protestant, they tended to stress social reform. Pope Pius X clamped down severely on liberalism in the Catholic Church and condemned Modernism as “the synthesis of all heresies.” Eventually, the most intractable of the modernizers were forced from the priesthood or left voluntarily.

What effect the Modernist movement had on Padre Pio’s intellectual or spiritual growth is conjectural. Most likely it had none at all. The Capuchin order appears to have been extremely conservative at the time and a bastion of historical Christianity and traditional Catholicism. Fra Pio’s theological training centered on the Bible, the Church Fathers, and a handful of mystical theologians.

Knowledge of Sacred Scripture was considered essential. The numerous letters that Padre Pio wrote over the years to his spiritual directors and spiritual children make it clear he knew the Bible thoroughly — although he never quotes chapter and verse, and sometimes his quotations are slightly inaccurate, as if he was writing from memory. His letters are often a series of Bible quotations or paraphrases. He seems to have been as thoroughly familiar with the minor prophets as he was with the Gospels. Frequently, Padre Pio would tell a spiritual child that what he was advising was not his own opinion but God’s word, because it was from the Bible. If the Bible said something, that was the end of all argument. A statement from Scripture was, he insisted, “a sure and infallible argument.”³⁰ At a time when few lay people, at least in southern Italy, had Bibles, he would insist that his spiritual children study Scripture. “As regards your reading matter,” he would write to one of his disciples, “there is little [contemporary literature] that is admirable and nearly nothing that is edifying. It is absolutely necessary for you to add to such reading that of the Scriptures, so recommended by all the Fathers of the Church.”³¹

A Victim of Divine Love

Besides the Scriptures and the early Church Fathers, Fra Pio studied thoroughly the teachings of the Dominican Saint Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274) and the Franciscan Saint Bonaventure (1221–1274). Fra Pio was probably influenced most by the Spanish Carmelite mystical theologians Saint Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) and Saint John of the Cross (1542–1591). Their teachings about prayer, contemplation, self-detachment, and the inner life embodied the spirit of the Capuchin order at the time.

Through his study of Saint Teresa and Saint John of the Cross, two principles were reinforced for Fra Pio: total commitment to Christ and the embrace of suffering. So total must a Christian’s commitment be to God that he should be able cheerfully to renounce everything else in life, even innocent pleasures. Identification with Christ means identification with his cross. Suffering is beneficial, when joined to that of Christ. Saint Paul writes, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church” (Col 1:24). Saint Paul does not mean that Christ’s saving work is insufficient or that he really needs man’s help, but rather that when Christ offered himself for the sins of humanity, his oblation included the sufferings offered to God by his followers throughout the ages; that when Christians offer their sufferings to him, Christ, in eternity, joins them to his own. The more a Christian fully gives himself up to Christ, the closer he is drawn into the Savior’s love as well as into his sufferings.

Fra Pio was taught that suffering, therefore, might even be courted by some souls. Christ grants to his beloved the privilege of sharing his mission. For this reason, and not for any masochistic motive, suffering can be seen as desirable, because it brings about the salvation of souls. Saint John of the Cross encourages the Christian to “strive always to choose, not that which is easiest, but that which is most difficult; not what is most delightful, but what is most unpleasing; not that which gives the most pleasure, but what gives no pleasure.”³² Padre Pio no doubt had this counsel in mind when, in his fifties, he spoke of a deceased member of his religious community:

That blessed priest, when he was here in our family, almost every day, after dinner, when I was trying to get some rest, would come to talk about his troubles to me. It took a great deal of sacrifice to listen to him. Now, every day, at the same hour, as a reward for the sacrifices he forced me to make, I say a holy Rosary for his soul, even if I feel tired and exhausted.³³

Fra Pio was drawn to offer himself as a “victim of divine love” to suffer with Christ in order to win souls. In the tradition in which Fra Pio grew to spiritual maturity, more souls were thought to be won to Christ through the suffering of devoted men and women than through preaching, writing, or personal persuasion. The idea of offering oneself as “a victim of divine love” is implied in much of what Saint Teresa and Saint John wrote, but it seems to have been only in Fra Pio’s time and shortly before that certain devout people came to make specific acts of oblation of themselves as “victims.”

One such victim soul was the then recently deceased French Carmelite nun Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus (1873–1897), who would be canonized in 1925. Her autobiography was published about the time that Fra Pio first decided that he wanted to be a Capuchin. He read The Story of a Soul when he was a student and learned that Thérèse, who died prematurely of painful tuberculosis, had made a special offering of herself as “a burnt sacrifice to the merciful love of Our God.” Another relatively recent “victim of divine love” was Gemma Galgani (1878–1903), known as “The Virgin of Lucca,” who, like Thérèse, died of consumption in her twenties. Fra Pio pored over her letters, committing many of them to memory, to the point that, in writing to his spiritual directors, he would express himself in her words.³⁴ Gemma, who was canonized in 1940, had many visions and ecstasies, in one of which she claimed that Jesus told her, “My child, I have need of victims, and strong victims, who by their sufferings, tribulations, and difficulties, make amends for sinners and for their ingratitude.” Galgani responded, “I am the victim and Jesus the sacrificing priest. Act quickly. All that Jesus wills I desire. Everything that Jesus sends me is a gift.”³⁵ As in the case of Saint Thérèse, Saint Gemma’s act of offering was followed by increased physical, mental, and spiritual suffering, which, in the last two years of her life, included the stigmata — bleeding wounds in the hands, feet, and breast, corresponding to those of Christ’s Passion.

Padre Pio several times quoted from a recently published book of Gemma’s letters in his writings to his spiritual directors. For instance, he wrote to Padre Agostino in March 1912: “My heart, hands, and feet seem to have been pierced with a sword, the suffering is so great…. And meanwhile the devil never ceased to appear before me in his hideous guises and to beat me in a terribly frightening way.”³⁶

One biographer judged Pio’s quotations, virtually word for word, from Gemma’s work, as evidence of dishonesty on his part, especially since, in one of his letters, he expressed the desire to own a copy of Gemma’s Letters and Ecstasies. Padre Pio had a tendency, in his letters, to quote from other writers without any citation. He sometimes quoted passages from the letters of his spiritual directors when writing to people who asked for counseling. In some of them, making reference to medical procedures of an earlier time, he seems to be quoting from some earlier devotional work. He was, however, not preparing a thesis, nor was he writing for publication. In quoting others, he was simply trying to express how he felt or give counsel to others. Sometimes, especially when he was quoting the Bible, Padre Pio identified his source, at least generally; other times he did not. He evidently saw no reason to quote his sources all the time. Gemma Galgani’s writings obviously moved him tremendously, and he identified intensely with her sentiments. He may have had access only to excerpts from Gemma’s book, and it was likely for this reason, and not to deceive, that he expressed a desire to read the entire work.

Despite the talk of “appeasing” God and “making reparation” for sins, none of these victim souls ever thought they were doing Jesus a favor or manipulating God, as these words of Padre Pio, spoken to Christ in ecstasy a few years later, indicate:

I want to help you…. Can’t you make me strong? … I have to tell you that it grieves me to see you in this way. Have they committed many offenses against you lately? … They have burdened you still again! … I too can help you…. Make it possible for me to help you with that heavy, heavy cross…. Can’t they make it any smaller? … Ah, Jesus, you’re right … I am weak … but, my Jesus, what can I do? … Can’t you help me? … I’m aware of the impossibility … but to support you if nothing else … May I help you this evening? … You don’t need me. … Shall I keep myself ready? … You are there … what is there to fear?³⁷