Chapter Two
A Boy Who Talked to the Angels
The “Beautiful Francesco”
Unfortunately, there is little contemporary documentation about Padre Pio’s childhood, except some essays he wrote in school, but these are limited help in providing a picture of the boy and his life. He kept no diary, and neither did those around him — most of whom were illiterate. Although his father worked most of the year out of the country, only a couple letters between father and son have survived the ravages of time. Pio’s father, however, when he was in his eighties and living with Mary Pyle at San Giovanni Rotondo, provided numerous anecdotes from the childhood of his famous son, which she recorded. But, of course, the doting father who practically worshiped his son was not a totally unbiased witness.
The most extensive work in reconstructing Padre Pio’s childhood was done immediately after his death, when Padre Alessandro of Ripabottoni and Padre Lino of Prata undertook to interview elderly persons who had known Padre Pio as a boy, taking down their oral histories. There is always the possibility that the good fathers were told what they wanted to hear. The only one of Pio’s siblings who survived him was his baby sister Graziella, who outlived her brother by only seven months. Nobody seems to have interviewed her.
According to those who were interviewed, the child Franci Forgione, with his blond hair and brown eyes, “was so beautiful he looked like an angel.”1 Neighbors referred to him as “il bello Francesco” (“beautiful Francis”), as much for his temperament as for his appearance.
A Shaken Baby!
Like most children, Franci could be exasperating at times. His father told Miss Pyle that Franci passed through a spell when he kept the whole house awake by crying all night long. One night Tata, as the children called their father, was so upset by the baby’s continuous crying that he leaped from his bed, grabbed the baby, and shook him, screaming, “The good Lord must have sent a little devil into my house instead of a baby!”2 To make things worse, Orazio lost his grip and the baby fell to the brick floor. His hysterical mother gathered the shrieking child into her arms and screamed at her husband, “What are you trying to do, kill my child!”3
As an adult, Padre Pio recalled having terrible nightmares as a little boy. He told a friend that when his mother put him to bed when he was a toddler and turned off the oil lamp, he would start crying, and his mother would turn on the light to quiet him. “I was surrounded by frightening monsters!”4 Although his experience was not unusual for a little child, Padre Pio reportedly concluded, “The devil was tormenting me.”5 It was reported that he claimed, as an adult, that as early as he could remember, he could communicate with his guardian angel and had visions of Christ and Mary. The supernatural world was close at hand for the farm folk of the Mezzogiorno, but extraordinarily so for young Franci Forgione.
The Dog That Ate the Peppers
Franci was a sickly child. “I’ve suffered since I was at my mother’s breast,” he remarked to a friend in later life.6 When he was two, suffering from stomach problems, he was taken by his mother to a local witch. Beppa feared that someone had put the “evil eye” on the child. According to Padre Pio, the witch “took me by the legs and held me upside down [as if] I were a lamb,” making nine crosses over his stomach, massaging it, and chanting eerie incantations.7 The treatment seemed to work.
When he was about ten, Franci became seriously ill with an illness usually described as typhoid fever, a bacterial infection usually caused by poor sanitation or contaminated food. A local physician, Don Giacinto Gudagna, told the boy’s parents that he had only days to live. Bluntly, the parents told Franci that he was dying. The sick child answered calmly, “If I’m dying, I want to see my beloved Piana Romana once more.” Gra and Beppa agreed, and his brother Michele, then fifteen, put his little brother on a donkey and took him to the cottage on the farm. Now it was harvest time, and Beppa had prepared fried peppers as a treat for her farmhands. The peppers were so hot that the workers had eaten comparatively few, and a large pot remained on the table. Alone with Michele, Franci asked for some peppers. Michele refused. Later Beppa arrived at the cottage, and Franci said to her: “Close the door, Mammella. The light is bothering me. Now please leave me. I want to be alone for a little bit.” So she left him alone in the house. Thereupon Franci jumped out of bed, devoured every single pepper, and downed a half a bottle of milk. When Beppa returned Franci was in a deep sleep and the pot was empty. She upbraided Michele for letting the dog get to the peppers. Next morning Franci awoke perfectly well and confessed that he had been the “dog” that ate the peppers.8 Both Padre Pio and his brother recounted this story in later years.
Dedicated to Christ and Mary
Only three years of public school were available in Pietrelcina in the 1890s. Classes were held at night so that the children could work during the day. Michele continually played hooky and remained completely illiterate. His draft registration card in September 1918, when living in Flushing, Queens, New York, reveals that he signed his name with an “X.” Franci, however, was an eager student. His first teacher was Cosimo Scocca, a fourteen-year-old boy from the adjacent farm. The next two years Franci was instructed by Mandato Saginario, who worked by day as a rope maker.
Franci’s spiritual precocity manifested itself very early in life, which is not surprising, since both of his parents were extremely devout and reared their children to be saints. Of Franci’s siblings, only Pellegrina rejected the faith in which she was reared. The other children enthusiastically embraced Gra and Beppa’s piety.
At baptism, Beppa dedicated Franci (as she must have done with the other children) to Christ and the Virgin Mary. When Franci was five, Beppa encouraged him to dedicate himself to Christ, Mary, and his patron, Francis of Assisi.9 From the time he could talk, Franci was always asking to be taken to church. He liked to hear stories about Jesus, Mary, and the saints, and, rather precociously, he was aware of sin. One day, when he was a very little boy, he was walking with his mother past a field of turnips. When Mammella remarked, “Look at those beautiful turnips. I’d sure like to eat some,” Franci, with grave and solemn demeanor, looked up at her and said sternly, “That’s a sin.” A few days later, however, when mother and son were walking past a stand of fig trees, Franci begged his mother to pluck some figs. “Wait a minute now,” she said. “It was a sin to eat the turnips, and now it’s not a sin to eat the figs!”10
An “Unsalted Piece of Macaroni”
As a little boy, Franci was given the chore of minding the family sheep — all four or five of them. The families on the neighboring farms combined their flocks, with the result that their children played together. When interviewed in later years, Franci’s surviving childhood playmates had varying recollections. Luigi Orlando recalled: “When he was with us, he never prayed. There was nothing particularly outstanding about him. With us he was a boy just like any other, [though] well-mannered and reserved.”11 Ubaldo Vecchariano characterized him as somewhat of a “nerd” — “submissive and reserved,” an “unsalted piece of macaroni.”12 Antonio Bonavita recounted, “The rest of us children were wicked, but he was always good.”13 Mercurio Scocca recalled that Franci loved to play Mass and sculpt clay figures of Christ and the saints for the various religious festivals. Riparta Masone, a playmate of Franci’s youngest sister, remembered that her older brother Vincenzo, who played with Franci, complained that he was “always preaching” to the other boys.14
Some of Franci’s playmates recalled how it was customary for mothers to give their children a chunk of bread