#42 OF 45 - THIS HAPPY BOOK REPORT ON PADRE PIO

# 42 of 45 - THIS HAPPY BOOK REPORT ON PADRE PIO

IN PURSUIT OF THE TRUTH - HTTP://WWW.CINOPSBEGONEBLOGSPOT.COM. WED. OF HOLY WEEK, APR. 8, 2020

 

PADRE PIO - THE TRUE STORY BY C. BERNARD

CHAPTER 19 - CONTINUED SORROWS p. 218-224

    "Padre Pio was cheered by the presence of San Giovanni Rotondo of his dear friend Padre Agostino. Padre Pietro, the provincial, transferred him there in 1923 to teach Latin and Greek at the Seraphic College and also to compensate Pio fo the loss of Padre Benedetto. Agostino remained for two years. Writing his diary several years later, he recalled,  "It is needless to speak of Padre Pio's joy and mine in our living together.

    Both men soon discovered, however, that deep as their friendship was, there was no way to replace Padre Benedetto especially in his capacity as spiritual director. Agostino soon realized that he was unable to plumb the depths of Pio's soul as Benedetto could....

 

    On December 13, 1923, Pio complained to Padre Pietro that he was being abandoned by everyone. "In vain I try to make acts of conformity to God's will," Pio wrote, "In vain I turn to Him. Everywhere there is silence ... even in heaven, which has become as bronze to me."....

 

    Padre Pio's parents made few trips to San Giovanni Rotondo. Mammella complained that when she did go to visit her son, he had so little time. Once when she drove to San Giovanni with Brunatto, she was frustrated at the five minutes of conversation she had with her son. "What am I going to do?"she asked Brunatto. "I can't even get to say a word to him. You kiss his hand for me." Another time I was there for twenty days and still was not able to have a single word with Padre Pio. Holy Mary, why does he act that way? He doesn't even let me kiss his hand....

 

    Meanwhile, new fires of contention were breaking out. The same year as the Misco affair. Padre Pio denied absolution to Maria DiMaggio, the longtime mistress of Archpriest Don Giuseppe Principe. So lax were the local secular clergy that it was not uncommon for those who were not homosexual to live with their women as man and wife for years. Maria DiMaggio, sixty years old, had lived with Don Giuseppe (who was 12 years her junior) for nearly a quarter century. Padre Pio insisted that their relationship was sinful and demanded that it be terminated, the archbishop was. When at his insistence, Maria DiMaggio continued to sleep with Principe, Padre Pio refused to absolve her. She went to a priest in another town, who upheld Padre Pio ...

 

    During the early months of 1926, Gagliardi forwarded more anonymous letters of accusation to the new minister provincial, Padre Bernardo. Bernardo, being from outside the province of Foggia, did not know Padre Pio well enough to recognize that the accusations were false. The allegations his time were subdued enough not to be readily dismissed by someone not thoroughly acquainted with the situation. Among other things, Gagliardi, through the anonymous letters, accused Padre Pio of insisting that his spiritual children make their confessions more frequently than their usual eight-day interval. He further accused Pio of permitting his hand to be kissed and of lingering outside the confessional to talk with women, thereby violating the restrictions placed on him by the Holy Office.

 

    Padre Pio was "shattered" when Padre Bernado, in a letter, mentioned the accusations as if there were substance to them. Responding to the charge in detail, Pio wrote the provincial, on May 18.1926, that he had never counseled at any interval shorter than eight days....Regarding the hand kissing, he protested. "Anybody who has been to our church knows how many times I have shouted at them, and if they do not desist, what fault is it of mine? Do I have to strike them? Well, perhaps I would if I had good hands!"

 

    In 1928, Padre Pio was still held in great suspicion within many circles of the Church, even within his own Order. For instance in August of that year, a Swiss Capuchin from Freibourg wrote to Padre Bernardo that he had read in a local paper that Padre Pio had been "accused, condemned and imprisoned for crimes against morality." Meanwhile the notorious Padre Pio, outwardly unflappable, continued his ministry. Those who came to see him continued to be enthusiastic, nearly every week there we reports of some sensational cure or dramatic conversion... George H. Kubeck