Although this work is published by a Catholic company, it is my hope that it may reach an audience of readers of all religious persuasions and none at all, because, whatever one ultimately thinks about him, Padre Pio’s life had an impact — and an overwhelmingly positive one — on millions of people, both during his lifetime and afterward.
C. Bernard Ruffin III
Reston, Virginia
February 2018
Acknowledgments
This book could never have come to be without the gracious assistance of the following persons, most of whom have since gone to be with the Lord, who aided me in my research for my original work:
• Roberta Accousti
• William Accousti
• Mario Avignone
• Vera M. Calandra
• Padre Emidio Cappabianca
• Albert Cardone
• William Carrigan
• Pastor Richard L. Cosnotti
• Sister Carolyn Cossack
• Pietro Cugino
• John L. Curry
• David Curfman
• Anne Pyle Dennis
• Riparta De Prospero
• Rosa Di Cosimo in Savino
• Padre Eusebio Di Flumeri
• Paul Dominic
• John Duggan
• Father Leo Fanning
• Pia Forgione in Pennelli
• Liliana Gagliardi
• Concetta Gambello
• Dorothy M. Gaudiose
• Emilio Ghidotti
• Giuseppe Gusso
• Monika Hellwig
• Robert H. Hopcke
• Louise Jones Hubbard
• Alice Jones
• Therese Lanna
• Tony Lilley
• Andre Mandato
• Grace Mandato
• Father Pio Mandato
• Carmela Marocchino
• Father Joseph Pius Martin
• Padre Eusebio Notte
• Giuseppe Pagnossin
• Padre Alessio Parente
• Joseph Peterson
• Monsignor George Pogany
• James T. Pyle
• Diana Pyle Rowan
• Father Robert Sarno
• Julie A. Satzik
• Father John Schug
• Hilary Smart
• Montserrat Sola-Solé
• Father John D. St. John
• Father Joachim M. Strupp
• Elizabeth Kindregan Walsh
• Paul Walsh
• Barbara Ward
To the acknowledgments that were written for the 1991 edition, I would like to include many thanks to members of the staff of Our Sunday Visitor, among whom are Jacqueline Lindsey, Bert Ghezzi, and Mary Beth Baker.
In addition:
• Charles Abercrombie and Julie Cifaldi of San Giovanni Rotondo, who graciously acted as intermediaries with the friary, obtaining books, information, and photographs.
• Father Matteo Lecce, secretary of the Provincial Library of San Severo (Italy), who made available to me excerpts from the Chronicle of the Friary at San Giovanni Rotondo.
• Elia Stelluto, of San Giovanni Rotondo, who granted permission to use his photographs.
• Marsha Daigle-Williamson, who translated a substantial amount of material for me from the Italian.
• Silvia Porcelli, who contacted several people in Italy for me and translated their responses.
• The Calandra family of the Padre Pio Centre of Barto, Pennsylvania, for their continued assistance.
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