Padre Pio

Padre Pio of Pietrelcina (1887–1968), born Francesco Forgione in the small farming village of Pietrelcina in southern Italy, was a Capuchin Franciscan friar whose reported stigmata, gifts of healing, bilocation, and reading of souls made him one of the most controversial and beloved figures in twentieth-century Catholicism. Francesco grew up in a devout family so poor that his father twice emigrated to America to earn money for the family. He entered the Capuchin novitiate at age fifteen and was ordained a priest in 1910. From his earliest years in religious life, he experienced physical sufferings that doctors could not explain and mystical phenomena that his superiors viewed with concern. On September 20, 1918, while praying before a crucifix in the choir of the friary at San Giovanni Rotondo, Pio received the stigmata — visible, bleeding wounds in his hands, feet, and side that corresponded to the wounds of Christ's crucifixion. He bore these wounds for fifty years until his death, when they reportedly healed without scarring. He is one of very few stigmatists in Church history whose wounds were subjected to medical examination during his lifetime, though the examinations yielded no consensus on their origin. Pio's stigmata and reported mystical gifts drew enormous attention and controversy. The Vatican imposed severe restrictions on his ministry multiple times between 1923 and 1933, suspecting fraud or mental illness. He was forbidden from saying public Mass, hearing confessions, or corresponding with spiritual directees. These restrictions were eventually lifted, and by the 1940s, pilgrims were traveling to San Giovanni Rotondo in such numbers that Pio spent up to sixteen hours a day in the confessional. Pio's most tangible legacy is the Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza (House for the Relief of Suffering), a major research hospital he founded in San Giovanni Rotondo in 1956, which continues to serve as one of the leading medical facilities in southern Italy. He died on September 23, 1968, and was canonized by Pope John Paul II on June 16, 2002. His shrine at San Giovanni Rotondo now receives over seven million visitors annually, making it the second most visited Catholic shrine in the world.