Padre Pio

As a youth, Francesco reported that he had experienced heavenly visions and ecstasies.[3] In 1897, after he had completed three years at the public school, Francesco was said to have been drawn to the life of a friar after listening to a young Capuchin who was in the countryside seeking donations. When Francesco expressed his desire to his parents, they made a trip to Morcone, a community 13 miles (21 km) north of Pietrelcina, to find out if their son was eligible to enter the Order. The friars there informed them that they were interested in accepting Francesco into their community, but he needed to be better educated.[5]

He compared weekly confession to dusting a room weekly, and recommended the performance of meditation and self-examination twice daily: once in the morning, as preparation to face the day, and once again in the evening, as retrospection. His advice on the practical application of theology he often summed up in his now famous quote: "Pray, Hope, and Don’t Worry". He directed Christians to recognize God in all things and to desire above all things to do the will of God.[13]

In 1920, father Agostino Gemelli, a physician and psychologist was commissioned by Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val to visit Padre Pio and carry out a clinical examination of the wounds. "For this reason, despite having gone to Gargano Peninsula on his own initiative, without being asked by any ecclesiastical authority, Gemelli did not hesitate to make his private letter to the Holy Office a kind of unofficial report on Padre Pio."[40] Gemelli wanted to express himself fully on the matter and wanted to meet the friar. Padre Pio showed a closed attitude towards the new investigator: he refused the visit requesting the written authorization of the Holy Office. Father Gemelli's protests that he believed he had the right to subject the friar to a medical examination of the stigmata were in vain. The friar, supported by his superiors, conditioned the examination to a permit requested through the hierarchy, without taking into account the credentials of Father Agostino Gemelli. Therefore, Gemelli left the convent, irritated and offended for not being allowed to examine the stigmata. He came to the conclusion that Francesco Forgione was "a man of restricted field of knowledge, low psychic energy, monotonous ideas, little volition."[41] Gemelli critically judged Pio: "The case is one of suggestion unconsciously planted by Father Benedetto in the weak mind of Padre Pio, producing those characteristic manifestations of psittacism that are intrinsic to the hysteric mind."[41]

On behalf of the Holy Office, Gemelli re-examined Padre Pio in 1925, writing a report in April 1926. This time Pio allowed him to see the wounds. Gemelli saw as its cause the use of a corrosive substance Pio had attached himself to these wounds. The Jesuit Festa had previously tried to question Gemelli's comments on stigmata in general.[42] Gemelli responded to this criticism in his report and resorted to responding to his knowledge of self-inflicted wounds. He therefore clarified his statements about the nature of Pio's wounds: "Anyone with experience in forensic medicine, and above all in variety by sores and wounds that self-destructive soldiers were presented during the war, can have no doubt that these were wounds of erosion caused by the use of a caustic substance. The base of the sore and its shape are in every way similar to the sores observed in soldiers who procured them with chemical means."[42]

Once again, Gemelli judged Padre Pio's mental abilities as limited: "He [Pio] is the ideal partner with whom former Minister Provincial Father Benedetto is able to create an incubus-succubus pair ... He is a good priest: calm, quiet, meek, more because of the mental deficiency than out of virtue. A poor soul, able to repeat a few stereotypical religious phrases, a poor, sick man who has learned his lesson from his master, Father Benedetto."[43] Gemelli wrote in 1940 and later several times to the Holy Office on what he considered to be unjustified claims to the sanctity of Padre Pio.[44]

The Bishop of Volterra, Raffaele Rossi, Carmelite, was formally commissioned on June 11, 1921 by the Holy Office to make a canonical inquiry concerning Father Pio. Rossi began his Apostolic Visitation on June 14 in San Giovanni Rotondo with the interrogation of witnesses, two diocesan priests and seven friars. After eight days of investigation, he finally completed a benevolent report, which he sent to the Holy Office on October 4, 1921, the feast of St. Francis of Assisi. The extensive and detailed report essentially stated the following: Father Pio, of whom Rossi had a favorable impression, was a good religious and the San Giovanni Rotondo convent was a good community. The stigmata cannot be explained but certainly they are not a work of the devil, nor a gross deceit, a fraud, the trick of a devious and malicious person.[45][46] During the interviews with the witnesses, which Rossi undertook a total of three times, he let himself be shown the stigmata of the then 34-year-old Father Pio. Rossi saw these stigmata as a “real fact”.[47]

In his notes, which have been put directly on paper, and the final report, Rossi describes the shape and appearance of the wounds. Those in the hands were "very visible". Those in the feet "were disappearing. What could be observed resembled two dot-shaped elevations[48] with whiter and gentler skin."[47] As for the chest, it says: "In his side, the sign is represented by a triangular spot, the color of red wine, and by other smaller ones, not anymore, then, by a sort of upside-down cross such as the one seen in 1919 by Dr. Bignami and Dr. Festa."[49] Rossi also made a request to the Holy Office, a chronicle to consult with Father Pio, who is assembling Father Benedetto, or at least to have the material he has collected so that one day one can write about the life of Father Pio.[50]

According to Rossi "Of the alleged healings, many are unconfirmed or nonexistent. In Padre Pio’s correspondence, however, there are some credible declarations that attribute miracles to his intercession. But without medical confirmation it is difficult to reach a conclusion, and the issue remains open.[51] According to Lucia Ceci, Rossi could not find any of the attributed miracles.[52]

When Rossi asked him about bilocation, Pio replied: "I don’t know how it is or the nature of this phenomenon—and I certainly don’t give it much thought—but it did happen to me to be in the presence of this or that person, to be in this or that place; I do not know whether my mind was transported there, or what I saw was some sort of representation of the place or the person; I do not know whether I was there with my body or without it.".[53][54]

John XXIII was skeptical of Padre Pio. At the beginning of his tenure, he learned that Father Pio's opponents had placed listening devices in his monastery cell and confessional, recording his confessions with tape.[55] Outside his semi-official journal, John XXIII wrote on four sheets of paper that he prayed for "PP" (Padre Pio) and the discovery by means of tapes, if what they imply is true, of his intimate and indecent relationships with women from his impenetrable praetorian guard around his person pointed to a terrible calamity of souls.[55] John XXIII had probably never listened to the tapes himself, but assumed the correctness of this view: "The reason for my spiritual tranquility, and it is a priceless privilege and grace, is that I feel personally pure of this contamination that for forty years has corroded hundreds of thousands of souls made foolish and deranged to an unheard-of degree."[56] According to Luzzatto, the Vatican had not ordered this wiretap. In another journal note, John XXIII wrote that he wanted to take action. In fact, he ordered another Apostolic Visitation.[56]

Pio was said to have had the gift of reading souls, the ability to bilocate, among other preternatural phenomena. He was said to communicate with angels and work favors and healings before they were requested of him.[65] The reports of preternatural phenomena surrounding Padre Pio attracted fame and amazement. The Vatican was initially skeptical.

Based on Pio's correspondence, even early in his priesthood he experienced less obvious indications of the visible stigmata: bodily marks, pain, and bleeding in locations supposedly corresponding to the crucifixion wounds of Jesus Christ.[66] In a 1911 letter, he wrote to his spiritual advisor Padre Benedetto from San Marco in Lamis, describing something he had been apparently experiencing for a year:

Then last night something happened which I can neither explain nor understand. In the middle of the palms of my hands a red mark appeared, about the size of a penny, accompanied by acute pain in the middle of the red marks. The pain was more pronounced in the middle of the left hand, so much so that I can still feel it. Also under my feet I can feel some pain.[66]

Already in a letter dated March 21, 1912, to his spiritual companion and confessor, Father Agostino, Father Pio wrote of his devotion to the mystical body of Christ and the intuition that he, Pio, one day himself would bear the stigmata of Christ. Luzzatto points out that in this letter Father Pio uses unrecognized passages from a book by the stigmatized mystic Gemma Galgani. Later Pio denied knowing or owning the cited book.[67]