THIS HAPPY BOOK REPORT ON PADRE PIO # 3 OF 25

THIS HAPPY BOOK REPORT ON PADRE PIO # 3 OF 25

IN PURSUIT OF THE TRUTH - HTTP://WWW.CINOPSBEGONEBLOGSPOT.COM - THURS. MAR. 15/18

PREFACE:

    From the book, "Padre Pio:The True Story (Revised and Expanded) by C. Bernard Ruffin, Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, 1991"

PROLOGUE: THE SECOND FRANCIS - 18-20

"It also cannot be denied that thousand of individuals have testified to his mysticalcharismata.... One thing is certain Padre Pio cannot be dismissed lightly. There are basically only four conclusions that may be drawn concerning the Capuchin priest and his ministry:

First, one may conclude that Padre Pio is one of the greatest frauds of history, a showman, perhaps in league with Satan, a magician capable of humbugging the public to a degree unimagined even by P.T. Barnum.

Second, one may conclude that Padre Pio was in large measure a product of the superstitious of an ignorant and gullible peasantry who read into the life of a simple, holy priest what they wanted to see, building around him a cult of mindless self-delusion.

Third, one may conclude that Padre Pio was a madman, a pathetic creature, hysterical and possibly schizophrenic, who remained out the mental institution by his clever ability to convince thousands of people that his delusions were reality.

If none of there three scenarios be true, then one must conclude that Padre Pio of Pietrelcina was one of the most significant figures in Christian history, a man of prophetic and apostolic stature, who through great personal holiness and enlightened wisdom and through spiritual gifts inexplicable by science, tended to confirm the truth of the Gospel and the veracity of historical Christianity to and indifferent and unbelieving age: a man capable of conveying to an extraordinary extent of God's love and care; an evangelist who never conducted a crusade, and who without travelling more than a few miles from his friary in fifty years, yet seemed capable of transforming lives to a degree unimagined by the most successful evangelical preachers.

Padre Pio's life is remarkably well-supported by good evidence. Admittedly, there are problems. Padre Alessio Parente, who worked closely with Padre Pio during the last years of his life, has said, "We didn't have time to write things down. At night we were so stressed and so tired that we didn't have five minutes to put a pen in our hands. We went straight to bed....

Father Dominic Meyer, who served as Padre Pio's secretary for many years, in a 1961 review of a Padre Pio biography, wrote, "As to newspaper accounts: how often have not the superior of Padre Pio been asked to clarify statements by journalists that were positively false, exaggerated misrepresentation of the truth...

The life of Padre Pio is, to be sure, a life replete with events that seem strange, even incredible to the average reader, but it is also a life of a real human being with real emotions, real joy, real sorrows, and real defects, who strove to serve his fellow human beings in his day. the following pages tell his story."

George H. Kubeck