St. Padre Pio

St. Padre Pio was an Italian Capuchin Franciscan priest, born Francesco Forgione at Pietrelcina in 1887, who spent most of his life at the friary of San Giovanni Rotondo in Apulia and bore the visible stigmata from 1918 until his death in 1968. He heard confessions for decades, often for many hours a day, and he founded a large general hospital next to the friary called the Home for the Relief of Suffering. Pope John Paul II canonised him in 2002, and his feast is 23 September.

Padre Pio was investigated repeatedly during his lifetime, by doctors and by the Holy Office, and for periods he was forbidden by Rome to celebrate Mass publicly or to hear confessions. The Church's caution about him is part of the record and this page sets it out, because it is the reason the eventual canonisation carries weight.

1. Who Padre Pio Was

Francesco Forgione was born on 25 May 1887 at Pietrelcina, a hill town in Campania, to a farming family of little means. His father worked in America for periods to pay for his son's education. He entered the Capuchin friars at Morcone in 1903 at the age of fifteen and took the name Pio, and he was ordained a priest in 1910 at Benevento.

His health was poor from the beginning and was never explained satisfactorily by his doctors. He spent long stretches back at Pietrelcina rather than in community. He was conscripted into the Italian army medical corps during the First World War and discharged in 1918 on health grounds.

In 1916 he was assigned to the friary of Our Lady of Grace at San Giovanni Rotondo, on the Gargano promontory in Apulia. It was a remote and poor place. He remained there for the rest of his life, more than fifty years, and the town grew around what happened there.

2. The Wounds of Christ

For 50 years, this Capuchin friar bore the stigmata (the wounds of Jesus) in his hands and feet. He wore fingerless gloves to conceal them, but they bled constantly. Doctors examined them but could find no natural explanation. He literally carried the Cross.

The date is fixed: 20 September 1918, while he was praying before a crucifix in the choir loft of the friary church after Mass. He was thirty-one. He wrote to his spiritual director describing what happened and asking that it be kept quiet, and he asked God repeatedly to take the visible marks away while leaving the pain.

He is generally described as the first priest recorded to have borne the visible stigmata. St. Francis of Assisi received them in 1224, and a number of others in the tradition, most of them lay or religious women, are said to have had them. The Church treats stigmata as a private phenomenon. Even where they are accepted, they are not evidence of doctrine and are not required belief for anyone. Padre Pio was canonised for heroic virtue, and the wounds are part of his biography rather than the basis of his sanctity.

Accounts agree that the wounds remained for about fifty years and that they were not present on his body at his death in 1968.

3. The Doctors, the Holy Office and the Restrictions

Word spread fast, pilgrims arrived in numbers, and the Church did what it is supposed to do with a sensational claim. It investigated, and it was not gentle about it.

The medical examinations

Physicians were sent to examine the wounds, among them Luigi Romanelli and Giorgio Festa from 1919 onward. Their reports differed in tone and in conclusion. Some found no natural explanation for wounds that neither healed nor became infected over years. Others were sceptical and looked for chemical or psychological causes. The examinations were repeated over decades.

The Holy Office

In 1923 the Holy Office issued a declaration stating that the supernatural character of the events at San Giovanni Rotondo was not established, and directing the faithful accordingly. Between 1931 and 1933 Padre Pio was forbidden to celebrate Mass in public or to hear confessions, and he was kept from contact with pilgrims. He obeyed without protest, which those around him recorded at the time. Pope Pius XI lifted the restrictions in 1933. Further investigations followed in the 1950s and 1960s under Pope John XXIII, including apostolic visitations and disputes over the management of the hospital and of donations.

Why this matters

A cult around a living wonder-worker is exactly the situation in which the Church's slowness is a protection rather than an obstruction. Padre Pio was examined, restricted, silenced, and examined again for most of his adult life, and he submitted each time. He was beatified in 1999 and canonised on 16 June 2002, thirty-four years after his death and after his life and writings had been gone through in detail. That sequence is the point. Sanctity is declared on the evidence, after death, and not by popular acclaim during a person's lifetime.

4. Reading Souls

Padre Pio was famous for his Confessionals. He would spend up to 16 hours a day hearing confessions. Sometimes, if a penitent forgot a sin (or hid one), he would tell them what it was. Moral of the story: Don't lie to Padre Pio.

The confessional was his working life. People queued for days at San Giovanni Rotondo, and a booking system had to be introduced. He was known for being abrupt and occasionally for refusing absolution to someone he judged unready, and for sending them away to come back in earnest. Penitents recorded being told about sins they had not mentioned. The Church has never defined any of this, and a Catholic is free to weigh the testimony.

What is not in question is the sacrament itself, and it is worth naming clearly because it is the part a reader can actually use. Confession is free. It is available in every Catholic parish. The seal binds the priest absolutely, with no exception, and a priest may not act on anything he learns in it. The Catechism sets out the effects of the sacrament as reconciliation with God and with the Church, the remission of the eternal punishment incurred by mortal sin, peace of conscience and an increase of spiritual strength (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1496). Padre Pio spent fifty years administering that, which is a more remarkable fact than any of the reported charisms.

5. Miracles

Countless miracles are attributed to him, including the cure of complete blindness. He also reportedly had the gift of bilocation (being in two places at once, which is great for multitasking). When asked about his suffering, he said, "I want to be a friar who prays."

The reported phenomena are worth setting out with the right label on each. Bilocation, a scent of flowers with no physical source, healings, and knowledge of things happening at a distance were reported by very large numbers of witnesses across decades, and the reports are part of why the case was investigated so heavily. None of them is Church doctrine. A Catholic may believe any, all or none of them.

Two miracles were formally accepted by the Church, one for each stage of his cause, after medical and theological review. The recovery of Consiglia De Martino of Salerno in 1995 was accepted for his beatification. The recovery of Matteo Pio Colella, a young boy from San Giovanni Rotondo who came through fulminant meningitis in 2000 while his family and the prayer groups prayed to Padre Pio, was accepted for the canonisation. Those two went through the ordinary process, which requires medical documentation, examination by physicians including non-Catholics, and a judgment that no natural explanation is available.

6. The Home for the Relief of Suffering

The largest thing Padre Pio built is a hospital. He began raising money in the 1940s for a general hospital at San Giovanni Rotondo, a poor and isolated town with almost no medical provision, and the Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza, the Home for the Relief of Suffering, opened in 1956.

It is a working general hospital and research centre, not a shrine building, and it remains one of the significant hospitals in southern Italy. He wanted it built beside the friary so that medical care and prayer sat next to each other, and he described the sick as the point of the whole enterprise.

The hospital is the answer to a reasonable question about Padre Pio. A reader who is unpersuaded by stigmata and bilocation can still look at what the man actually did with fifty years: he heard confessions until he could not stand, and he built a hospital for people who had none.

7. Spiritual Direction and the Prayer Groups

Padre Pio directed a great many people, in person and by letter, and his correspondence survives. His counsel was practical and repetitive, which is what spiritual direction usually is. The line most often quoted from him is "Pray, hope and don't worry", and the substance behind it was frequent confession, daily Mass, meditation, the Rosary and obedience to one's ordinary duties.

He encouraged the formation of prayer groups, and these were organised into a network that continues internationally, attached to the shrine at San Giovanni Rotondo and to local parishes. They are lay groups that meet to pray, usually with the Rosary and the Mass at the centre.

He also spoke often about the guardian angel, and encouraged people to ask their angel to carry intentions to him. That practice is popular devotion rather than doctrine, and it fits within the Church's teaching that each person has an angel as protector and shepherd (CCC 336).

8. Feast Day, Shrine and Devotion

His feast is 23 September, the day he died in 1968 at the age of eighty-one. He is honoured as St. Pio of Pietrelcina, which is his name in the calendar, and the memorial is kept across the Church.

San Giovanni Rotondo is now one of the most visited pilgrimage sites in Italy. His body was exhumed in 2008 and has been displayed for veneration at the shrine. A large new church was built there to handle the numbers. The friary church where he received the stigmata, the confessional he used and his cell are all part of the pilgrimage.

He is invoked by the sick and by those in pain, and in Italy he was named patron of civil defence volunteers. Devotion to him is very widespread in Italy, in the Italian diaspora and in the Philippines, and his image is one of the most reproduced of any modern saint.

9. What a Reader Can Take From Him

Go to confession

The single most useful thing on this page. Padre Pio gave his life to a sacrament that costs nothing and is available in any parish. If it has been years, that is the ordinary case and the priest has heard it before.

Obedience under suspicion

When Rome silenced him, he stopped. He did not organise a faction, brief the press, or appeal to his followers against his superiors. That is the behaviour of a man who believes the Church is more than a stage for his own gifts, and it is a test that people with a following usually fail.

Build the hospital

Extraordinary experiences are not the measure. The measure is what got made. Padre Pio's fifty years produced a hospital and a very long queue of people who had made their peace with God.

Pray, hope and do not worry

His standing advice was unremarkable and hard: pray daily, keep going to the sacraments, do your duties, and refuse anxiety. Scripture says the same in plainer words. Cast all your anxieties on him, because he cares about you (1 Peter 5:7).

10. Frequently Asked Questions

When is St. Padre Pio's feast day?

His feast day is 23 September, the anniversary of his death at San Giovanni Rotondo in 1968. He appears in the calendar as St. Pio of Pietrelcina, and the memorial is kept across the Church. Pope John Paul II beatified him in 1999 and canonised him on 16 June 2002.

How long did Padre Pio have the stigmata?

About fifty years. He received the visible wounds on 20 September 1918 while praying before a crucifix in the choir loft of the friary church at San Giovanni Rotondo, at the age of thirty-one, and accounts agree that the marks were not present on his body when he died on 23 September 1968. He wore fingerless gloves to cover his hands and asked God repeatedly to remove the visible marks while leaving the suffering.

Why was Padre Pio banned from saying Mass in public?

The Church investigated the reported phenomena and the cult growing around him. In 1923 the Holy Office declared that the supernatural character of the events at San Giovanni Rotondo was not established, and from 1931 to 1933 Padre Pio was forbidden to celebrate Mass publicly, to hear confessions or to meet pilgrims. He obeyed without protest. Pope Pius XI lifted the restrictions in 1933, and further investigations followed in the 1950s and 1960s.

Do Catholics have to believe Padre Pio bilocated?

No. Reported charisms such as bilocation, the scent of flowers with no physical source, and knowledge of distant events are private phenomena, and the Church has never defined any of them. A Catholic is free to believe any, all or none of them. Two healings were formally accepted through the ordinary process for his beatification and canonisation, after medical and theological review, and even those are not articles of faith.

What hospital did Padre Pio build?

The Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza, the Home for the Relief of Suffering, at San Giovanni Rotondo. He began raising funds for it in the 1940s for a town that had almost no medical provision, and it opened in 1956. It is a working general hospital and research centre and remains one of the significant hospitals in southern Italy.

Where is Padre Pio's body?

At the shrine of San Giovanni Rotondo in Apulia, southern Italy, where he lived from 1916 until his death. His body was exhumed in 2008 and has since been displayed for veneration. The site is one of the most visited pilgrimage destinations in Italy, and the friary church where he received the stigmata, his confessional and his cell are part of the pilgrimage.