Pio of Pietrelcina

Padre Pio ( Padre Pio Italian; * as Francesco Forgione on May 25, 1887 in Pietrelcina, Benevento, Campania, Italy Province; † September 23, 1968 in San Giovanni Rotondo, Foggia, Apulia, Italy ) was a Catholic priest and Capuchin. Since 1918 began exhibiting stigmata and he should have had the gift of healing, prophecy and soul show. 1999 Padre Pio Pope John Paul II was beatified, canonized in 2002. He is one of the most popular saints of Italy.

Life

Francesco Forgione was the eighth child of Grazio Forgione, a farmer, and Maria Giuseppa di Nunzio. On July 6, 1902, he competed as a postulant with the Capuchins in San Giovanni. After leaving school he entered on 22 January 1903 as a novice in the Capuchin Order and received the religious name Pio ( the pious ). At this time, Brother Pio was already suffering from tuberculosis. After the temporary vows on January 22, 1904 Brother Pio began with the study, presented on 27 January 1907, the perpetual vows and was ordained a priest on August 10, 1910. Subsequently, he was chaplain of the priest from Pietrelcina and was convened in November 1915 as a medic for military service. Because of his poor health, he had to interrupt the service by recovery breaks often. Finally, he was declared unfit for service. After living in various monasteries came brother Pio 1916 in the Capuchin monastery of San Giovanni Rotondo, where he lived until his death.

On September 10, 1910 stigmatization came in the form of redness on what is returned from the church on his intense empathize with the suffering of Christ, by critics on the alleged use of caustic substances. As of September 20, 1918 wounds on the chest, hands and feet were visible. The Stigmata led to repeated, ecclesiastical arranged medical examinations. To hide the wounds on the hands, Padre Pio was mostly fingerless gloves.

Despite great - even the church - to doubt the authenticity of the stigmata increasingly traveled pilgrimage to San Giovanni Rotondo to the Holy Mass of Padre Pio and sought him out as a confessor. At times, banned the superiors that he appeared in public. The Italian historian Sergio Luzzatto cites John XXIII. , Alleging Pio " intimate and indecent relations with the women, who form his Praetorian Guard " is said to have entertained. Luzzatto claims, furthermore, that Pio had openly supported to 1920, the nascent fascist movement on the rise and at that time " to Padre Pio around a clerical- fascist mixture emerged " have.

After Luzzatto the wounds of Padre Pio on the specific use of carbolic acid ( phenol) are due and thus explained without supernatural causation. Luzzatto found pharmacy orders Pio, according to which these in larger quantities the neurotoxin Veratrine ordered, whose income has insensitivity wound pain result. After appropriate publications had caused a stir in Italy, the Capuchin Order declared in September 2007, Pio was also responsible for medical services in his convent and have used the antiseptic phenol to disinfect syringes.

Since 1940, Padre Pio was working as a healer and spoke prophecies. Thus made ​​out to be, to have the young priest Karol Wojtyla in 1947 predicted both the election as head of the Catholic Church as well as the assassination in 1981. Also in 1940, Padre Pio began to collect donations for a hospital. 1956 finally opened the House for the Relief of Suffering in San Giovanni Rotondo, which at that time was the largest and most modern hospitals in southern Italy. When he died at 81 years in 1968, to have attended his funeral, more than 100,000 people.

Worship

After years of skepticism and even sanctions of the Catholic Church the work of Padre Pio Pope Paul VI was. Finally, in 1971 valued very highly. In 1997, the Holy See declared him " Venerable Servant of God ," Padre Pio was beatified on May 2, 1999. St. Peter's Square was too small to accommodate all the faithful who wanted to attend the celebration. The canonization followed on 16 June 2002. The Memorial of Padre Pio is September 23.

In summer 2004, the new United Church of San Pio da Pietrelcina was the architect Renzo Piano consecrated next to the grave of Father in San Giovanni Rotondo, as the previous church had become too small after several years of construction.

The commercialization of the figure of Padre Pio in San Giovanni Rotondo was sharply criticized in church circles: Alessandro Maggiolini, at that time bishop of Como, Padre Pio spoke the day before the canonization against the flourishing business, which had developed in connection with this priest. "Jesus Christ drove the merchants from the temple, but now I have to find that they have returned ," he said in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica.

In early March 2008, the body of Padre Pio was exhumed. The remains were laid after an investigation into the crypt of the monastery church of Santa Maria delle Grazie for a few months to worship in a glass reliquary. The local Archbishop Domenico D' Ambrosio said after the exhumation in the coffin opening was once the beard of the Holy been identified. The upper part of the skull was partially skeletonized, the chin, however, was received properly and the rest of the body in good condition. "If Padre Pio allows, I would say, his hands looked like freshly manicured. "

Since 19 April 2010, the relics are in the lower church of the new pilgrimage basilica. The face of Padre Pio is covered by a silicone mask that mimics the bushy eyebrows and beard.

Literature and Film

  • Renzo Allegri: Padre Pio, teacher of the faith. Parvis, Hauteville 2002, ISBN 3-907525-61-2
  • Gabriele Amorth: Padre Pio. Life story of a saint. Christiana, Stein am Rhein, 2003, ISBN 3-7171-1108-6
  • Winfried Brandau: transform darkness into light. Bernardus -Verlag, Mariawald 4th edition 1998, ISBN 3-910082-62-9
  • Winfried Brandau: Saint Padre Pio. Helpers in great distress. Bernardus -Verlag, Mariawald 1999, ISBN 3-937634-06-1
  • Winfried Brandau: The healing power of reconciliation. Bernardus -Verlag, Mariawald 2004, ISBN 3-910082-88-2
  • Winfried Brandau: What reveals to us the Holy Padre Pio in view of the afterlife?. Bernardus -Verlag, Mariawald 2004, without ISBN
  • Arni Decorte: Padre Pio of Pietrelcina. Memories of a preferred witnesses of Christ. Parvis, Hauteville 2001, ISBN 3-907523-44- X
  • Joseph Hanauer: The stigmatic Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, Bock and Herchenhain, Bad Honnef 1979, ISBN 3-88347-041-4
  • Bernd Harder: Padre Pio and the miracle of faith, Pattloch, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-629-01658-8
  • Michael Hesemann: Stigmata. You bear the wounds of Christ, Silver Cord, Güllesheim 2006, ISBN 3-89845-125-9
  • Ingrid Malzahn: Padre Pio of Pietrelcina. Grasmück, Old Town 2001, ISBN 3-931723-12-7
  • Adi Aquarius: Padre Pio. The stigmatized Capuchin. Salvator Mundi, gaming, 1991, ISBN 3-85353-010-9

The Swiss priest Hans Buschor the documentary film, Padre Pio, Father shot in 1968 of millions, a film biography of Pio with numerous eyewitness accounts and historical film clips from his life, his last show and his funeral. From the proceeds of the film financed Buschor the Catholic television channel K- TV.

Carlo Carlei filmed in 2000 the life of the priest for television with Sergio Castellitto in the lead role.

Novitiate Dillingen, Saarland St. Peter's Square Anniversary Padre Pio Pilgrimage Church Integrated Authority File
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