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Prologue

The Wise Man of the Gargano

A survey taken in Italy in November 2005 concerning Italy’s most beloved saints concluded:

Padre Pio has no rivals. He is the saint most frequently invoked and most frequently stuck on the windshields of cars and trucks. And for some he is also [the unofficial] patron saint of Italy.

According to the survey, 70 percent of Italians invoke saints: 31 percent invoke Padre Pio, as opposed to 9 percent who call upon the Virgin Mary and 2 percent who call upon Christ!¹ Even at the time of his death in 1968, National Review described him as “one of the chief religious forces in Italy.”²

By the end of his life, five thousand letters a day were arriving for Pio of Pietrelcina, a priest in the Order of Friars Minor Capuchins. This priest lived for more than half a century in the friary of Our Lady of Grace, on the outskirts of San Giovanni Rotondo, a town of some twenty thousand in the Gargano hills in southeastern Italy near the Adriatic Sea in Foggia, the northernmost province of the region of Apulia (Puglia), which is the spur of the heel of the Italian boot. For years, throngs of people waited in pre-dawn darkness for the opportunity to attend Mass with the priest who for fifty years had displayed the wounds of Christ’s crucifixion on his hands, feet, and side. Some people waited for days — even weeks — for the opportunity to make their confession to him.

Most of Padre Pio’s visitors were Italian, but, especially after the Second World War, pilgrims increasingly came to San Giovanni Rotondo from all over the world. Many knew not a single word of Italian — the only language, other than his regional dialect, in which Pio was fluent. Despite the language barrier, many of them claimed that they were somehow able to communicate effectively with the holy man on the mountain. Although the overwhelming majority of his visitors were Catholics, a number of Protestants and Orthodox, as well as Jews and other non-Christians — even atheists — joined in seeking out the priest with the wounds of Christ who declared, “I am for everyone!”

Those who sought out “The Wise Man of the Gargano” included both the uneducated peasant as well as the intellectual, artists, singers, actors, politicians, and priests and religious. During the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), someone remarked, with some exaggeration, that so many bishops were consulting Padre Pio, it seemed as if the council was being held at San Giovanni. One of his visitors was a cardinal allegedly sent by the pope to explore Padre Pio’s reaction to some of the reforms.³

During his lifetime, at least two popes said privately that Padre Pio was a saint. On March 9, 1952, Archbishop Giovanni Battista Montini, later Pope Paul VI, remarked to a major general of the Italian national police (carabinieri), “Padre Pio is a saint.” Overhearing the remark, a few minutes later the reigning pontiff, Pius XII, concurred, “We all know that Padre Pio is a saint.”⁴ During the early part of Padre Pio’s ministry, when a number of high-ranking Church officials regarded the Capuchin friar with hostility, Pope Benedict XV characterized him as “a man of God.”⁵

Not only churchmen, but notables from the world of politics and entertainment, made their way to Padre Pio’s friary door. Aldo Moro, longtime prime minister of Italy, made frequent trips to see “The Light of the Gargano,” as did many other Italian politicians. King Alfonso XIII of Spain, Queen Maria José of Italy, and Francisco Franco (“Caudillo” of Spain) were among those known to have sought his advice. Beniamino Gigli, the celebrated operatic tenor, made several trips to see Padre Pio, and Irving Berlin, the American songwriter, made at least one, as did composer Gian Carlo Menotti. Even members of the scientific community, such as American cardiologist Paul Dudley White, visited Padre Pio and professed to be “deeply impressed” with him and his work.

The gray-bearded friar, to whom the fictional character Obi-Wan Kenobi would bear a striking resemblance, who was described by National Review as having “the greatest moral prestige of any priest in Italy,” was widely credited with transforming the life of a region of Italy that had been cruelly impoverished for centuries by bringing — chiefly through the establishment of his famous hospital, the Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza — prosperity, employment, education, and first-class health care.

There are innumerable testimonies to the dramatic effect the Padre had in people’s lives. “I was drawn to him like a magnet!” an elderly lady from the Italian city of Taranto told the author in San Giovanni Rotondo in 1978. From the time of her first visit in 1948, she and her family traveled several times a year to see him and ask his counsel. Long after his death, she and her husband, children, and grandchildren continued to make the four-hour trip from their home at least twice a year to “visit” with Padre Pio at his tomb.

Andre Mandato (1928–2014), a native of Padre Pio’s hometown of Pietrelcina who became a custom tailor in North Plainfield, New Jersey, related how “Padre Pio changed my life.” He went with a friend to see the Padre in 1945 — out of curiosity. He left the confessional awestruck. Padre Pio knew — without ever having met Mandato before — that he had been debating in his mind whether or not to make his confession to him before returning home. Moreover, Padre Pio recited, correctly and in detail, all the sins of which the young man was guilty. “He knew everything that I had done,” Mandato declared. “Padre Pio asked, ‘Have you done this? … Have you done that?’” In every instance, the answer was yes. Padre Pio referred not merely to general categories of sin, but to specific acts which he could scarcely have guessed, even through a shrewd knowledge of human nature. After Mandato left the confessional, he said, “All I could do was cry, cry, cry.” His experience had a profound and lasting effect on him. “Many times, we ask God to forgive us,” Mandato said, “but with the mind and not the heart. Padre Pio made it possible for me to ask forgiveness of God with all my heart and soul, not just with my mind and lips. From that moment I have really felt what I prayed. He made my religion real!”⁶

Monika Hellwig (1929–2005), professor of theology at Georgetown University, spent three years in Italy during the time of the Second Vatican Council and visited San Giovanni Rotondo. She said she never met anyone in Italy who was skeptical of Padre Pio. Even radicals and anti-clericals regarded the venerable friar with “respect and reverence.” Moreover, she could testify that the stigmatized Capuchin led people to “deep conversions.” “What struck me most,” Hellwig stated, “is how much Padre Pio mediated the presence of the Divine to all who came to him. People came away from him invariably inspired and assured of God’s presence and care for them. In him they experienced a most immediate revelation of God’s love and concern for them.”⁷

Padre Pio was almost an exact contemporary of Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976), the German Lutheran theologian who, in an attempt to reconcile the traditional teachings of Christianity with contemporary perceptions, devised a theology that “demythologized” the Gospels, stripping away such uncomfortable baggage as miracles and other vestiges of a “first-century worldview” in order to get at what he believed was the essential kernel of truth underlying all the “mythological” paraphernalia. Bultmann’s approach and those of religious writers with a similar point of view strongly colored much of the theological thinking of the twentieth century. Bultmann wrote in Kerygma and Myth: “It is impossible to use electric light and the wireless [radio] and to avail ourselves of modern medical and surgical discoveries and at the same time to believe in the New Testament world of demons and spirits.”⁸ Meanwhile, Padre Pio convinced many reasonable and intelligent people that he regularly saw and conversed with the Virgin Mary, that he could see their guardian angels just like he saw them, that he cast out demons, and, on occasion, was bodily attacked by them.

Without publishing a book or delivering a lecture, Padre Pio convinced thousands that miracles are not mythology but reality. Through his life and ministry, thousands came to accept the Sacred Scriptures and all the historical doctrines of Christianity. Indeed, Padre Pio, whom some ecclesiastical authorities dismissed as an undereducated “peasant,” is attested to have communicated the existential presence of Christ more directly, more immediately, and more satisfactorily than any of his immensely erudite contemporaries in their university chairs.

Here was a man who lived in the time of radio, television, movies, automobiles, air travel, and space exploration; who, though he did not live to see (and probably lament) personal computers and the internet, died at the beginning of the computer age; who worked miracles similar to those performed by the prophets of the Old Testament and the apostles of the New Testament. Here was a man in whom the words of Christ seem to have been fulfilled in a very obvious way: “Who believes in me will also do the works that I do” (Jn 14:12). Many sane, well-educated, and reasonably objective people have affirmed of Padre Pio that, like Moses, “The Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend” (Ex 33:11).

There is overwhelming testimony also that Padre Pio was gifted with the “aroma of paradise,” that frequently he displayed intimate knowledge of the inner lives and thoughts of those who came to him. Without leaving his friary at San Giovanni Rotondo, many insist, Padre Pio was often seen and addressed in other parts of Italy and the world; while his colleagues observed him deep in prayer or even dozing, people hundreds, even thousands, of miles away saw and heard him.

The archives of the Our Lady of Grace friary contain, according to a friar familiar with them, more than a thousand testimonies of people inexplicably delivered from incurable maladies and the effects of crippling injuries. Even more remarkable, great numbers of people swear that when the stigmatized friar celebrated Mass, he communicated to them the reality of Christ on Calvary, and that, during his Mass, Padre Pio’s face and form underwent a visible change — almost a metamorphosis. One of the friars who assisted Padre Pio in the saint’s later years declared that more people were deeply touched by Padre Pio through his Mass than through his healings, bilocations, and prophecies.

Perhaps most important, thousands testify that through Padre Pio’s ministry, they learned to walk in holiness and to resign themselves to God’s will, offering their suffering and heartache as a sacrifice to the Almighty for the conversion of souls.

Padre Pio’s disciples cherish his words, “I shall be able to do much more for you when I am in heaven than I can now while I am on earth.” Many report great favors received through his intercession. Some, even decades after his death, smell the “aroma of paradise,” which is believed to be a sign of his presence. Some, like Padre Pio’s old friend Andrea Cardone, a doctor of medicine, profess to have seen and talked to Padre Pio “in his mortal flesh,” even while his wax-masked corpse reposes in his tomb.

Not everyone was impressed by Padre Pio. The local archbishop, Pasquale Gagliardi (1859–1941), insisted that the stigmata were merely “pimples” and that Pio soaked himself in perfume to produce the “aroma of paradise.” Eventually, he swore on his pectoral cross that the Capuchin was demon-possessed. Agostino Gemelli (1878–1959), a prominent psychologist, Franciscan priest, and theologian, characterized Pio as an ignorant southern Italian peasant of limited intelligence, manipulated by his unscrupulous directors, whose wounds were the result of hysteria. Dr. Amico Bignami (1862–1929), professor of pathology at the University of Rome, confirmed the existence of the stigmata, but implied that the wounds were the result of autosuggestion. Monsignor Carlo Maccari (1913–1997), who conducted an investigation in 1960, dismissed Padre Pio as a “small and petty person”⁹ and wrote, “How is it that a man who has no exceptional natural qualities and who is anything but free of shadows and defects has been able to build a popularity that has few equals in the religious history of our times?”¹⁰

To many, Padre Pio remains a curious and unbelievable figure, subject matter for supermarket tabloids, his alleged appearances after death compared to those of Elvis Presley. Many, at least in the “developed” world, cannot relate to mysterious fragrances, miraculous healings, and communication with Mary, angels, and devils.

Some might be inclined to write off Padre Pio as a curious footnote to religious history, dismissing him as the creation of the credulous piety of a backward society. Nonetheless, it is hard to deny that, for thousands of people from all walks of life — physicians, scientists, lawyers, journalists, as well as peasants and unskilled laborers — Padre Pio made Christianity real. Through his ministry, many were led to deep and permanent conversion experiences and lives changed for the better.

It also cannot be denied that many individuals — perhaps thousands — have testified to Padre Pio’s mystical charismata. Some accounts are vague and farfetched, the half-remembered ramblings of aged persons recalling events many years distant. However, there are other accounts contemporary to the events in question, written down in detail by educated, intelligent, reliable, and well-balanced witnesses.

One thing is certain: Padre Pio cannot be dismissed lightly. It seems plain that several hypotheses can be made about the Capuchin priest and his ministry, though only one of them can ultimately be true:

• First, that Padre Pio was one of the greatest frauds in history, a showman, perhaps in league with Satan (if one believes in the devil), a magician capable of humbugging the public to a degree unimagined even by P. T. Barnum.

• Second, that Padre Pio was the product, in large measure, of the superstitious imaginings of an ignorant and gullible peasantry who read into the life of a simple, holy priest what they wanted to see, building a cult based on their own fantasies.

• Third, that Padre Pio was delusional, perhaps even schizophrenic, who was possessed of a clever ability to convince thousands of people that his delusions were reality.

• Fourth, if none of these three scenarios is true, then it is reasonable to conclude that Padre Pio of Pietrelcina was what he appeared to be: namely, one of the most significant figures in Christian history, a man of prophetic and apostolic stature, who, through great personal holiness, enlightened wisdom, and spiritual gifts inexplicable by science, tended to confirm the truth of the Gospels and the veracity of historical Christianity to an indifferent and unbelieving age; a man capable of conveying to an extraordinary extent a sense of God’s love and care; an evangelist who never conducted a crusade, and who, without traveling more than a few miles from his friary in a half-century, seemed capable of transforming lives to a degree unimagined by the most successful of preachers.

Padre Pio’s life is remarkably well-supported by good primary evidence. Admittedly, there are difficulties in proving certain aspects with documentary evidence. Padre Alessio Parente (1933–2000), who was one of Padre Pio’s companions and assistants in the last years of his life, recalled: “We didn’t have time to write things down. At night we were so stressed and so tired that we didn’t have five minutes to put a pen in our hands. We went straight to bed. That’s why I never put any notes down. I’m sorry now, for being at Padre Pio’s side, I could have noticed every movement, every word he said. I tried to tape him, but he knew [and would not cooperate].” Yet Alessio and other friars did, on occasion, succeed in taking down his conversations.

Father Dominic Meyer, who served as Padre Pio’s English- and German-language secretary for more than a decade, wrote in one of his circular letters to family and friends in America: “As to newspaper accounts: how often have not the superiors of Padre Pio been asked to clarify statements by journalists that were positively false, exaggerated misrepresentations of the truth. [Alberto] Del Fante [an Italian writer] collected many such newspaper accounts, sometimes several of the same event. Comparing these — on the same event — one sees how unreliable they are…. There were not only misrepresentations of the truth, there were lies, calumnies. Newspaper reports taken alone are not a source of history. They must be checked and double-checked.”

Father Dominic was also skeptical about the testimony of some of Padre Pio’s friends. “We have plenty experience with such testimony,” he wrote. “Not all who speak about Padre Pio and their experience are trustworthy. Some, wishing to pose as special friends of the Padre, have told the most incredible stories about him. Others, giving free vent to their imagination, have exaggerated, added, misunderstood, and misconstrued events. They probably did not want to lie. But they were such who could not think straight and mixed too much of their own into the story.”

While many newspaper accounts and much oral history must be taken with a grain of salt, there are solid and substantial sources. Chief of these are Padre Pio’s own letters, in four volumes, written to his spiritual advisers, spiritual children, and friends and colleagues. To corroborate these are the diaries and memoranda of several of Padre Pio’s confreres, notably Padre Agostino Daniele of San Marco in Lamis, who kept a journal, off and on, for fifty years. Of special value are the letters that Father Dominic, who was generally regarded as a somewhat skeptical man, wrote to his family between 1948 and 1958 — notably to his cousin Albert Meyer, who became cardinal-archbishop of Chicago. Also oral and written testimony by priests, physicians, and other educated persons, which corroborate accounts by persons whose humble background and lack of education would naturally render them suspect by the sophisticated. Father Dominic, after dismissing as rubbish much of the material written about Padre Pio, nevertheless concluded that when one looked at the actual events of his life, “Truth is stranger than fiction.” Moreover, in recent years the Vatican archives have made accessible documents from the pontificates of Benedict XV and Pius XI, among which are the records of a thorough investigation in the early 1920s by Monsignor Carlo Rossi from the Holy Office (or Inquisition).

The life of Padre Pio is, to be sure, replete with events that seem strange, even incredible to the average reader, but it is also a life of a real human being with real emotions, real joys, real sorrows, and real defects as well, who strove in his day to serve his fellow human beings by addressing their spiritual as well as physical needs.