Padre Pio da Pietrelcina was a Capuchin friar who for more than fifty years bore the stigmata — or the bleeding wounds — of Jesus. He was watched by the curious and the devoted, and forced to bear up under the burden of being called “a living saint.”

A humble priest, Padre Pio served most of his life in southern Italy. He was almost constantly in physical pain from his wounds, yet his greatest torment was the skepticism he endured within his own church. On the fiftieth anniversary of the day that he first received the stigmata, a friend wished him fifty more years. He jokingly replied, “What harm have I ever done you?”

Figure11-3: St. Padre Pio

Padre Pio died in 1968. Shortly before he died, he confessed to a fellow priest, “I belong more to the other world than this one, pray to the Lord that I might die.”

Miracles too numerous to count have been attributed to this priest. In confession he was reportedly able to read hearts. He was a mystic and had frequent conversations with Jesus, Mary, and the saints. He could also tell the future: in 1947 he told a young Polish priest, Karol Wojtyla, that he would one day become pope. Padre Pio died on September 23, 1968.

In 1999 that priest, who became Pope John Paul II, beatified Padre Pio at the Vatican in front of a crowd of 200,000 people, with another 100,000 watching on huge television screens in an open area across the city.

The pope looked tiny atop the Vatican balcony, below which he hung a banner of Padre Pio's photograph that was at least a few stories high. He told those gathered: “By his life wholly given to prayer and to listening to his brothers and sisters, this humble Capuchin friar astonished the world.”

The words of St. Padre Pio, on living faithfully: “God wants to wed the soul in faith and the soul which is to celebrate this heavenly marriage must walk in pure faith, which is the only suitable means for this loving union.”

In order for Padre Pio to be canonized, proof of a miracle was required. This miracle occurred on June 20, 2000. A young boy named Matteo Pio Colella was suffering from meningitis. One evening, he was sent to the intensive care unit of the hospital in San Giovanni, which was founded by Padre Pio. In the morning, nine of his organs showed no signs of life. That evening, however, a prayer vigil was held for Matteo. While his mother and some of the monks from Padre Pio's monastery were praying, the child woke from his coma. He reported that he had seen an elderly man sporting a white beard and a long, brown habit. This man told him that he would soon be cured. Padre Pio was canonized on June 16, 2002.