St. Padre Pio — The Catholic Saint Banned From Saying Mass in Public by His Church

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On September 20th, 1918, a priest in southern
Italy knelt in front of a crucifix after Mass.

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By the time he stood up, his hands were bleeding,
so were his feet, and a wound had opened in

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his side, the exact places Jesus was wounded
on the cross. Those wounds never closed, not

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for 50 years. And here's the part that most
people don't know. The Vatican's own watchdog

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office looked into it. and ruled there was nothing
supernatural going on. For more than a decade,

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the church kept him from saying mass in public
and from hearing confessions. A famous doctor

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wrote him off as unstable. This is the story
of Saint Padre Pio, a saint his own church

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spent over 10 years doubting.

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Hi, my name is John O'Connor and this is Everyday
Saints. This is now episode 23. If this is

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your first time stopping by, consider yourself
invited. Grab a seat, something to drink, and

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get comfortable. A new Saints story lands here
every Thursday. Today's Saint is one of the

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most famous Catholics of the 20th century,
Padre Pio. Now Padre is just Italian for Father,

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the way we would say Father John. and Pio is
the name he took when he joined a religious

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order as a teenager. Padre Pio was born Francesco
Forgona in 1887 in a little farming town in

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southern Italy called Pietretina. His parents
were peasant farmers, not wealthy and not educated,

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just hardworking people trying to raise a family.
From early on, Francesco was sick. His health

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stayed shaky his entire life and doctors never
fully figured out why. He also said he was

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seeing things other kids were not. Visions of
Jesus and Mary going back all the way through

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his childhood. Now, take that the way we take
any saint's private account of their own visions.

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It's what he said happened, but nobody else
could check it. At 15, he joined the Capuchins.

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Now, that's a branch of the Franciscans, the
order that follows St. Francis of Assisi. Now,

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St. Francis of Assisi was way back at the beginning
of our Saint journey, episode three to be exact,

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if you want to go and listen to it. But back
to Francesco's story. The men in the Capuchins

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are called friars. They live together in a community
a lot like monks, but they spend their days

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out serving people. That's when he took the
name Pio. He was ordained a priest in 1910

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at 23 years of age. His health was so fragile
that for years afterward, he lived mostly outside

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the monastery, back in his hometown, just so
he could survive. Then, about a month after

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his ordination, something strange happened.
By his own later account, marks appeared on

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his hands. He begged God to take them away,
and they faded. The pain stayed, though, but

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for the next eight years, nobody outside his
small circle knew a thing about it. To the

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wider world, Padre Pio was basically invisible.
A sick, obscure young priest from a small farming

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town doing ordinary parish work. If he died
in, 1917, almost nobody outside Pietraicina

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would remember his name today. By 1918, Padre
Pio was living at a monastery in a town called

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Sangiovanni Rotondo. On the morning of September
20th, he said mass. Afterward, he stayed behind

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in the choir, the part of the church where the
friars pray, as he usually did, to spend a

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few quiet minutes thanking God. A month later,
he described what happened next in a letter

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to his spiritual director. A mysterious figure
appeared in front of him. He wrote, with hands,

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feet, and side dripping blood. Then the figure
vanished. and Padre Pio realized his own hands,

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feet, and side were bleeding the same way. Those
wounds, well, they have a name. They are called

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the stigmata, which just means wounds that match
the wounds of Jesus on the cross. But this

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time, they didn't hide and they didn't fade.
Think about that. Not an invisible mark only

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he could feel. Open wounds in his hands, his
feet, his side that other people could see.

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At first, he tried to keep it quiet. By the
spring of 1919, church doctors were already

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coming to examine him. A surgeon named Luigi
Rominelli examined him five times between 1919

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and 1920, the first formal exam anyone gave
him. Rominelli wrote that the cause of the

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wounds was not natural, but doctors didn't agree.
Later in 1919, A pathology professor from

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Rome named Amico Bignami came to look. He was
an atheist and he had his doubts. He suspected

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that Padre Pio was causing the wounds himself
or at least keeping them open. Believers say

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the wounds never got infected and that the blood
smelled like flowers. That part comes from

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the people who loved him but not from a lab
or a doctor. Here's something that surprises

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people. Padre Pio hated the attention. He often
wore bandages or mittens to cover his hands

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and he avoided showing the wounds whenever he
could. This wasn't a man putting on a show.

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It was a man trying to live an ordinary life
while something extraordinary kept happening

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to his body, whether he wanted it or not. So,
yeah, you would think that the Vatican would

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have been thrilled. a priest with Christ's wounds
right there to examine. Instead, they got suspicious.

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And this is the part most retellings skip that
I could find. Now, to be fair to the Vatican,

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a little caution is part of the job. The church
wants to be sure a miracle is real before it

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puts its name on one, and it didn't want a crowd
of pilgrims built around something that might

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fall apart. That's a reasonable instinct. It's
just Not how this story went. Later in 1920,

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a famous doctor named Agustino Giamelli came
to meet Padre Pio. Giamelli was a Franciscan

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priest and a trained physician who had founded
a Catholic university in Milan. So people listened

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to him. The visit did not go well and Padre
Pio sent him away immediately. Giamelli went

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home and wrote a scathing report anyway. He
said Padre Pio was making the wounds himself,

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and he suggested acid was how. Later on, he
went so far to call Padre Pio a psychopath.

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Now, the doubters had one detail on their side,
and it's real. In 1919, Padre Pio quietly had

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a woman traveling to the province of Foja bring
him four grams of carbolic acid from a pharmacy

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there. It's a strong disinfectant that can also
burn skin. He told her it was for cleaning

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syringes, and he said the same thing later under
oath. No one has ever shown he used it on his

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hands, but the secrecy didn't help. Next, the
Vatican sent a bishop to investigate. His report

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in 1921 was mostly positive, but he did put
limits on Padre Pio. No blessing the crowds

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and no showing the wounds to anyone. Then the
pressure got worse. In 1922, the Holy Office,

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that's the Vatican's office that investigates
questions of Church teaching, ordered him to

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stop saying Mass in public. In 1923, it announced
its verdict. There was nothing supernatural

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going on. The town didn't take it quietly. In
June of 1923, a crowd gathered at the church,

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led by the mayor, and simply refused to accept
the ban. Padre Pio ended up saying mass in

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public again, with the whole town watching.
Then came the order to move him. In August,

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Padre Pio was told he'd be transferred to a
monastery far, away, quietly, and the whole

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thing would fade away. But word got out anyway.
The people of San Giovanni Rotundo gathered

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again. and the mayor warned the officials that
they'd have to walk over townspeople's dead

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bodies to take him. The police told the church
the transfer could not happen without bloodshed.

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Hmm, think about the standoff that created.
A small farming town on one side, the Holy

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Office, one of the most powerful offices in
the Vatican on the other. And the man everyone

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was arguing about was just a priest, sick,
quiet, and trying to stay out of it. The Vatican

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backed down and the order was suspended. But
the doubts, they didn't go away. In 1929, The

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church tried to move him again, and again violent
protests stopped it. Then in 1931, the restrictions

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got tougher. Padre Pio was barred from saying
Mass in public and from hearing confessions.

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Now, if you were unfamiliar, that's where Catholics
privately tell a priest their sins, the thing

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he would eventually become the most famous for,
but we'll get there shortly. For two years,

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he said Mass alone. with no one watching, no
crowd, no congregation, nobody there to see

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the wounds everyone had been arguing about.
So with that, the institution Padre Pio had

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given his whole life to looked at his wounds
and at different points called him a fraud,

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an unstable man, or just a problem to be moved.
And he obeyed. He said mass to an empty room

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and kept going. Then in 1933, the Pope himself
stepped in. Pope Pius XI ordered the ban lifted,

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and he reportedly told people he'd never had
anything against Padre Pio. He'd just been,

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and I quote, badly informed. Eleven years of
restrictions, and the Pope's own explanation

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came down to two words, badly informed. Whether
that was the whole story or not, that's what

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the Pope said. You'd think, after all this,
all the controversy has finally reached its

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closure point. But you'd be mistaken. In 1934,
Padre Pio was allowed to hear confessions again,

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first for men and a couple of months later for
women. What he did with that second chance

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became the thing he's most remembered for. He'd
spend 10, sometimes 12 hours a day in that

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confessional for decades, and the lines outside
only got longer. People came from all over

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Italy and then from all over the world. Many
of them described something unsettling. He

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seemed to already know what they were about
to confess before they said it. Sometimes,

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he'd bring up sins from years earlier that they
hadn't planned to mention. There were stranger

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reports too. Some people claimed he'd appeared
to them in places far from San Giovanni Rotondo.

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at times when he never left the monastery. That's
called bilocation, being in two places at once.

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I can't tell you what to make of those stories.
I can tell you they came from a lot of different

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people and nobody has ever been able to prove
them or disprove them. Here's what I find remarkable.

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The same institution that once questioned his
sanity was now sending pilgrims to his confessional

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by the thousands. And the doubts never fully
disappeared. More than 25 years after the church

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had cleared him, the suspicions came back. In
1960, microphones were hidden in the friary

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at San Giovanni Rotundo, including in Padre
Pio's cell and in the confessional, the booth

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where a confession is supposed to be completely
private. A friar and a Roman priest made the

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recordings. Padre Pio later found a wire under
his own bed and cut it. Those tapes and some

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short films shot around the convent got carried
up to Rome. On June 25th, 1960, Pope John

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XXIII sat down and wrote that he had just been
handed quote, very serious information on

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Padre Pio. The charge was not about money. It
was about the women around him. The report

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called them his praetorian guard. That is an
old Roman term that I had to look up. The praetorian

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guard was the emperor's private bodyguard, the
circle that never left his side. So what they

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meant was his inner circle, the closest followers.
And the claim was that the closeness was not

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just spiritual, that it had gotten intimate,
improper. And the pope did not simply take

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it as fact. In his own notes, he wrote, If what
they are telling me is true, then this is a

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disaster for souls set up to discredit the church.
That was his fear. The tapes never proved the

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women around Padre Pio were anything but devoted
followers. That July, they sent a man down

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to look for himself, Monsignor Carlo Macari,
an apostolic visitor, which just means Rome's

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inspector. New limits followed. Padre Pio could
say Mass only in a short window. Confessions

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got tight rules. He was told not to speak with
women alone. Those limits held until 1964 when

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Pope Paul VI told the Holy Office, the Vatican
office that had clamped down on him, to stop

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confining him like a criminal and to let him
do his ministry in full freedom. A lifetime

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of being doubted. and a lifetime of showing
up anyway. Incredible. Pandre Pio didn't just

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stop at confessions. He had a bigger project
in mind, one most people don't associate with

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him at all. Sangiovanni Rotondo was a poor
rural part of Italy, and Pandre Pio wanted

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real medical care for the people there. So he
set out to build an actual hospital. He spent

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years raising money and donations came in from
all over the world. In 1956, it opened. He

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called it, and I'm probably going to butcher
it, so my apologies, Casa Solivo della Sofarenza,

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which, if I said that right, means the house
for the relief of suffering. This wasn't a

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small clinic. It was a full-scale hospital built
in a poor rural corner of Italy, and it's still

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a working hospital today. A sickly kid from
a poor farming town built a hospital in a place

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that had nothing like it before. That's not
a mystical claim. That's bricks, donors, and

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decades of fundraising done by a man the church
once wondered if it even could trust. Think

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about that contrast for a second. The Vatican's
own critics said Padre Pio might not be of

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sound mind. That same man went on to organize,
fund, and build a full-scale hospital. I don't

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know about you, but that doesn't sound like
someone whose judgment couldn't be trusted.

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By the 1960s, Padre Pio's health, never strong
to begin with, was failing fast. He told people

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decades earlier, right around the time the stigmata
first appeared, that the wounds would vanish

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when he died. He died in the early hours of
September 23rd, 1968, at 81 years old. with

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a rosary in his hands. His last words, according
to the friar who was with him, were simply,

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Jesus, Mary. That was it. And then, just like
he'd said 50 years before, the wounds were

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gone. No scarring, no marks at all, just skin
that looked by every account completely renewed.

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He was canonized in 2002 by Pope John Paul II.
Over half a million people packed into Rome

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to watch it happen. And 40 years after his death,
in 2008, his body was exhumed from its tomb.

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Reports from the Times say the body was in remarkably
good condition, far better than you'd expect

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after four decades underground. All right, back
to the porch.

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Here's what sticks with me about this one. It's
not the wounds, it's not even the hospital.

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It's the two words the Pope used to explain
11 years of doubt. Badly informed. Think about

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that. Eleven years. A man told to say Mass alone
with no one watching because the people in

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charge were working from incomplete information.
And he didn't fight it. He obeyed and kept

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being exactly who he already was. Now, I want
to be careful here because it would be easy

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to turn this into a story about the bad guys.
But It is not. The people who doubted Padre

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Pio weren't fools. There was a real bottle of
acid. There was a real skeptical professor.

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There were real reasons to ask hard questions.
Asking wasn't the mistake. Deciding before

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they had really looked was. Now, there's a big
difference between asking a question and supposedly

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already having the answer. And that's the part
I keep turning over. How many times have I

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decided that what someone was like based on
something I'd only half heard? The coworker

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I wrote off as lazy. The neighbor I assumed
was unfriendly. The family member whose side

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of the story I never actually asked for. How
many of them were dealing with something I

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knew nothing about? And how many times did I
never find out? None of us, I would guess,

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will ever bear the stigmata. But almost all
of us know what it's like to be on the other

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end, to be doubted by the people whose approval
we wanted most. A family member who doesn't

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buy your side of the story, or a boss who assumes
the worst explanation instead of the honest

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one. If that's you right now, here's what Padre
Pio's story says to me. You don't have to win

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it today. You don't have to prove anything to
anybody by Friday, let's say. Some things take

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11 years to come out. And the only thing you
really control is who you are being while you

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wait. There's something almost, dare I say it,
poetic in how his story ended too. The wounds

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everyone argued over for 50 years, the ones
he spent his whole life trying to cover up,

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were gone around the time he died. He didn't
get to enjoy any vindication. He just got to

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be done carrying it. So here's what I'm sitting
with this week. Is there someone in your life

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you have been quietly doubting? Before you decide
about them, try one thing. Ask one honest question

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you haven't asked yet. Something like, help
me understand. Then actually listen to the

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answer. Because here's the thing about being
sure. It doesn't feel like guessing. It feels

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like knowing. The people who doubted Padre Pio
felt sure too. And it took 11 years before

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the Pope himself admitted he'd been badly informed.
So ask the question. It might turn out to be

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right, but at least you will know. It is now
time for the closing prayer. Lord, thank you

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for Padre Pio. for a faith that kept showing
up even while it was doubted. For anyone who

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feels misjudged right now, give them that same
quiet patience. And for the rest of us, help

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us be slower to doubt the person in front of
us. We have been badly informed often enough

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ourselves. Amen. St. Padre Pio is recognized
as the patron saint of civil defense volunteers,

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stress relief, and adolescence. His feast day
is September 23rd. Well, that is episode 23.

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If his story stuck with you, send it to somebody
who needs to hear that even saints weren't

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always believed right away. Next week, I haven't
decided yet on who the saint is, but we are

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back to an unknown saint. I'm John O'Connor.
Thanks for sitting on the porch with me, and

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I will see you next week.