THIS HAPPY BOOK REPORT ON PADRE PIO # 1

THIS HAPPY BOOK REPORT ON PADRE PIO # 1
IN PURSUIT OF THE TRUTH - HTTP:W.W.W.CINOPSBEGONEBLOGSPOT.COM - MONDAY. MARCH 5, 2018

PROLOGUE: THE SECOND ST. FRANCIS. 13-14

Preface:

    During all of January (due to illness), I fell in love with this book, "Padre Pio, The True Story," by C.Bernard Ruffin a Lutheran clergyman. This is a Happy Book Report about a Saint from Italy who lived in our lifetime. He died in 1968. Padre Pio is the most recent of God's messengers.How blessed we are with this most alive Christian Saint.This is the first report of many direct excerpts. Verify, check it out and believe.

P.S. There will also be "This Sad Book Report" by the author George Neumayer, "The Political Pope."

    " National Review called him "the hottest thing in mysticism in the twentieth century" and " one of the religious forces in Italy. By the time Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, whose secular name was Francesco Forgione, died in 1968, he was receiving five thousand letters a month, and thousands of visitors were converging on him from all parts of the earth making their way Italy's Gargano Mountains to the little 16th century friar of Our Lady of Grace, just outside the town of San Giovanni Rotondo, near the city of Foggia where the venerable Capuchin priest had lived for more than a half century. They were making way for days for a chance to make their confession to him, packing themselves into the friary church to "assist" in Padre Pio's Mass.

    Hundreds of books and articles were written about him in his native Italy, and scores of stories appeared in other countries as well. Time, Newsweek, and the New York Times, as well as other reputable American periodicals, from time to time featured lengthy, serious articles about the man who was widely known as the second St. Francis.

    Padre Pio's visitors were predominately Italian, but the devout, the troubled, and (to his annoyance) the merely curious poured in to see him from England, France, Ireland, Germany, Canada, America, Australia,  and from various African and Asian nations. Although the vast majority of his visitors were Roman Catholic, the "Prophet of the People" was occasionally sought out by men and women of other Christian denominations, especially during the Second World War, when British and American troops were stationed nearby. Except, perhaps, for Jehovah Witnesses, he welcomed people of all faith - even non-Christian ones. At a time when many of his faith looked down even on other Christians, Padre Pio declared, "I am for everyone!"

    Although most of the pilgrims to the "Wise Man of the Gargano" were people of humble origin, Padre Pio attracted large numbers of intellectuals and figures of international importance. During the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), so many bishops consulted him that some observers wondered aloud whether the council was being held at Rome or at San Giovani Retondo.

    At least two popes said privately that Padre Pio was a saint. On March 9, 1952, Archbishop Giovanni Battista Montini, later Pope Paul VI, told Giulio Antonacci, major general of the carabinieri (the Italian National Police), "Padre Pio is a saint." A few minutes later, Pius X11, the reigning pontiff, having overheard the remark, saw fit to concur: "We all know that Padre Pio is a saint!" Years before, Pope Benedict XV did not hesitate to characterize Padre Pio as "a man of God." It is no known whether Pope John Paul II has ever referred to him as a "saint"(indeed he could not after 1983, since Padre Pio's Cause for Canonization was pending), but he made his confession to Padre Pio in 1947 when he was a young priest; he visited San Giovanni Rotondo in 1947, when he was a cardinal; and returned in 1987 as pope.It is known that on at least one occasion the Holy Father commended a sick friend to padre's prayers - with startling results. ....

     Nearly a million people each year continue to come from all over the world to visit his tomb, view the cell where he lived and died, visit the museum display of his mementos, and see the crucifix in the choir overlooking the old church where, in 1918, he received the stigmata the visible, bleeding wounds of Christ's Passion in his hands, feet, and side - wounds which would give him the reputation of "The Living Crucifix" or "The Second Christ."G.H.K.