THIS HAPPY BOOK REPORT ON PADRE PIO # 8 OF 25

THIS HAPPY BOOK REPORT ON PADRE PIO # 8 OF 25
IN PURSUIT OF THE TRUTH - HTTP://WWW.CINOPBEGONE.BLOGSPOT.COM - MON. APR. 9/18

 

    From the book, "Padre Pio: The True Story (Revised and Expanded) by C. Bernard Ruffin"). Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, Indiana, 46750. These are direct excerpts.

 

    "By the late nineteenth century, huge numbers of southern Italian men were crossing the Atlantic to work in North or South America, as there were no jobs to be found in their region, save as farm laborers. It is said that at one time thirty percent of the males in Pietrelcina were working abroad....

 

    (His teacher) Don Angelo Caccaavo brooked no nonsense. Whenever a student got a lesson wrong, he had to take it home and copy it several times by the next morning. Unruly children were made up to hold out their hands to receive the wack of a short ruler on the open palm. If that did not work, Caccavo did not hesitate to crack the recalcitrant child on the head or put him "in jail," that is, make him kneel in front of the class, facing the blackboard. But the boys and girls learned, so parents never objected to Don Angelo's methods. ...

 

    Francesco grew into a handsome teenager, with fair, rosy skin and auburn hair, and a winning smile. He steadfastly ignored the flirtations of his female classmates, lowering his eyes to the floor when they spoke to him. He was also very fond of reading. In later years, however, he regretted his choice of books. To a spiritual daughter, he wrote, "I never felt the least attraction for the type of reading that might sully moral innocence and purity, for I held quite naturally in greatest abhorrence even the slightest obscenity. In my readings, which were not improper but were invariably worldly, I sought merely scientific satisfaction and the pastime of honest mental recreation." Yet, he insisted such reading never helped him "acquire a single virtue"and, on the contrary, cause his love of God to diminish.

 

    Already he was beginning to adopt some of the ascetical practices for which he was later famous. While one of his school compositions reveal that he still liked to sleep late on the days when he did not have to go to school, he already practiced "mortification" in the matter of eating....

 

    By October 1901, Francesco could write to his father in Pennsylvania:"Now I am under the guidance of a new teacher. I see that I am progressing day by day, for which I am happy as Mama." This is the first of his letters that have been preserved. Rejoicing in his father's health, he says: "We too are well, thanks be to the Lord, and I, in a special way, send continual prayers to our gracious Virgin, in order that she may protect you from every evil and restore you to our love, safe and sound.....

 

    As Francesco neared completion of the requirements for entrance int the Capuchin Order, he very nearly got cold feet. The decision to abandon home and family for the life of ascetic rigor and continued prayer was not an easy one for the sensitive boy. Later in his life, Padre Pio said that at that time he had drunk "great droughts of the world's vanity" and found it hard to renounce the world. He was referring not to money, liquor, sex, or anything else that would automatically come to the mind of the worldly person, but simply to the legitimate joys of life; and he was saddened at the prospect of having to forgo them in the harsh austerity of the friary. ...

 

    Francesco was about ready to enter the Capuchin novitiate in the fall of  1902 when his vocational plans were very nearly derailed. Pannullo received an anonymous letter accusing Francesco of halving sexual relationship with the daughter of the stationmaster. The archpriest called his staff together and they decided to suspend Francesco from his duties as altar boy. Francesco had no idea what was going on, and decided that suspension from duties at one's parish must have been customary before entrance to the seminary. It is hard to believe that Pannullo could have taken the charges seriously. He conducted a thorough investigation, and, after a short time, was able to trace the letter to a schoolmate of Francesco who admitted his calumny.... Asked whether he ever thought of revenge after learning the full story, Padre Pio told his friend Padre Agostino, "On the contrary, I prayed for them and I am still praying for them." Yet, he conceded, "At times I did mention to God, "My Lord, if it is necessary to give them a whipping or two to convert them, please do as long as their souls are saved in the end." 

George H. Kubeck