Within moments, the mother gathered the child in her arms, laid the baby on a bed, and returned to her husband’s side. The business manager went outside and demanded that the Masons admit the priest, who was trying to enter. Even if they were carrying out the wishes of their friend who refused to see a priest, he said, they had no right to bar him from entering to baptize a premature baby. They relented, and the priest went into the house. Just as he entered the sickroom, the dying man opened his eyes, regained consciousness for a short time, looked at the priest, and said distinctly: “My God! My God! Forgive me!” The priest was able to administer the last rites, and the sick man died the next morning.
In order to comprehend fully what took place in 1905, we have to advance in time to the year 1922. After her husband’s death, Leonilde moved to Rome with her children. In the summer of 1922, Giovanna, the girl born the night of her father’s death, was in St. Peter’s Basilica with a friend. She was about to enter college and was troubled. Her high school teachers had instilled serious doubts in her mind about the doctrine of the Trinity. She wanted to make her confession as well as talk to a priest about her dilemma. A guard told Giovanna and her friend that all the priests who were hearing confessions had already left, as it was almost time for the basilica to close for the day. Before they could exit the church, however, the girls encountered a young Capuchin priest who said that he would gladly hear Giovanna’s confession.
When Giovanna told the priest about her theological problem, he explained the doctrine of the Holy Trinity in such a way as to dispel all her doubts. Giovanna emerged from the confessional and stood, waiting with her friend for the priest to emerge from his side of the booth. The only person to appear was an irate guard who demanded: “What are you doing here? We’re closed. You have to leave the basilica. Come tomorrow morning and you’ll be able to make your confession.”
“But I already made my confession,” Giovanna explained to him. “We’re waiting for the priest to come out of the confessional so that we can kiss his hand. He’s a Capuchin Father.”
The guard went up to the confessional and opened the door to the priest’s compartment. “You see, young ladies, there’s no one here!”
“But where did he go?” Giovanna exclaimed. “We’ve been standing here, watching, and we haven’t seen him leave!” The girls agreed that there was no way the priest could have left the confessional without being seen by them.
That fall, Giovanna entered college. Sometime the following year, she was shown a picture of Padre Pio, who was by then becoming well-known in Italy, although she had never heard of him. She thought he resembled the Capuchin priest whom she had encountered at St. Peter’s and wondered whether it might in fact have been he. She dismissed the idea and thought no more of it until the following summer when she decided to go to see Padre Pio, along with an aunt and several friends. It was late afternoon when, standing in a crowd of people in the sacristy of the church, Giovanna caught her first glimpse of Padre Pio. To her amazement, he came up to her and extended his hand for her to kiss (as was the custom with priests in southern Italy), exclaiming, “Why, Giovanna! I know you! You were born the day your father died.”
Giovanna was nonplussed. How could this man have known such a thing? The next day, Giovanna made her confession to Padre Pio, after which he said to her, “At last you have come to me, my dear child. I’ve been waiting for you for so many years!”
“Father, what do you want of me?” the young woman asked. “I don’t know you.” She had come to San Giovanni Rotondo the previous day with her aunt and had never been there before. “Perhaps you’re mistaken and have confused me with some other girl.”
“No,” said Padre Pio. “I am not mistaken. I knew you before.”
“No, Father,” Giovanna objected. “I don’t know you. I never saw you before.”
“Last year,” Pio continued, “one summer afternoon, you went with a friend to St. Peter’s Basilica and you made your confession before a Capuchin priest. Do you remember?”
“Yes, Father, I do.”
“Well, I was that Capuchin.”
The student listened in absolute amazement as the priest continued: “Dear child, listen to me. When you were about to come into the world, the Madonna carried me away to Udine, to your mansion. She had me assist at the death of your father and she told me, ‘See, in this very room a man is dying. He is the head of a family. He is saved through the tears and prayers of his wife and through my intercession. The wife of the dying man is about to give birth to a child. I entrust this child to you. But first you will meet her at St. Peter’s.’ Last year I met you at St. Peter’s, and now you have come here to San Giovanni Rotondo on your own accord, without my sending for you. And now let me take care of your soul, as the Heavenly Lady desires.”
Giovanna burst into tears. “Father, since I’m your responsibility, take care of me,” she answered. “Tell me what I must do. Shall I become a nun?”
The Padre responded, “By no means! You will come often to San Giovanni Rotondo. I will take charge of your soul, and you will know the will of God.”
Giovanna told her mother what had happened, and so she went to see Padre Pio herself. He told her: “Madame, that little monk whom you saw walking towards the gallery of your mansion in Udine when your husband was dying — was me. I can assure you that your husband is saved. The Madonna, who appeared to me in the mansion and bade me pray for your dying husband, told me that Jesus had pardoned all his sins and that he was saved through her maternal intercession.”10 Both Giovanna and her mother utterly were convinced.
Giovanna Rizzani, who became the Marchioness Boschi of Cesena, remained a devoted disciple of Padre Pio and later gave a detailed deposition before the Archepiscopal Curia of Manfredonia. The curia noted that her account of what Padre Pio had told her about her birth and her father’s death when she first talked to him at length in 1923 was in exact agreement with the account Padre Pio had written in 1905 — a document which the marchioness had not yet read. Padre Pio’s account of his bilocation had been given to his superiors, and they had not shared it with anyone.
“Something That Distinguished Him from the Other Students”
During his years of study, except for Padre Benedetto and a handful of his superiors, Fra Pio’s confreres — including his fellow students — knew nothing about his mystical or supernatural experiences, about which he never spoke. They were, however, aware that he was different. Padre Guglielmo of San Giovanni Rotondo, who was just a year Pio’s senior, wrote of the “purity that was revealed by the great modesty in his eyes … the penances he asked with insistence to perform … the change in his countenance that could be observed when he unexpectedly encountered an immodest picture … his betrayal of distress when he observed in others an action of a dubious nature — all of these proof of his love and angelic virtue.”11
Padre Raffaele D’Addario of Sant’Elia a Pianisi (1890–1974), who studied with Pio and became a close friend, recalled, “In particular, he aroused in me a sense of great admiration for his exemplary conduct.” Whenever Padre Raffaele encountered Pio, whether in the hallway, the choir, in the sacristy, or in the garden, the latter always seemed to be in a state of recollection — that is, an awareness of God’s presence. “There was never the danger that he would say a single word that was not necessary,” Padre Raffaele recalled. “Though I was still very young and no expert on virtue, I noticed something in him that distinguished him from the other students.”12
Padre Damaso of Sant’Elia a Pianisi (1889–1970) had a similar observation. He found Pio “a little different from the others…. He was more lovable, and he knew how to say just the right thing to [the younger] boys. He would suggest something in the way of advice in a very sweet manner, and we used to listen to him of our own accord.”13
There was something other than his sterling character that drew the attention and solicitude of others — Fra Pio’s precarious health.