# 53 OF 80 - THIS HAPPY BOOK REPORT ON PADRE PIO

# 53 OF 80 - THIS HAPPY BOOK REPORT ON PADRE PIO

IN PURSUIT OF THE TRUTH - HTTP://CINOPSBEGONE.BLOGSPOT.COM - FRI. JUNE 26,2020

CHAPTER 25 - A MAGNIFICENT WORK OF CHARITY, P. 281-285

    Work on La-Casa Sollievo della sofferenza began in earnest immediately after the war. On October 5, 1946, the Casa was incorporated as shareholding company with a capital of one million lire and a thousand share of one thousand lire each, to be divided among the shareholders, each of whom signed a document renouncing any profit. 

    The first members of the company were Dr. Sanguinetti, Dr. Kiswarday, Don Guiseppe Orlando, Dr. Eleonara Figna,= (a Florentine engineer) Dr. Guglielmo Pancali (an agricultural scientist), and Pasquale DeJMeis ( a wealthy landowner). That same afternoon Sanguinett and Figna went to the home of Maria Pyle, where Padre Pio was staying, helping to nurse his dying father. They told him that the corporation was now a reality and he bestowed his formal blessing on the project....

    The next spring Padre Pio appointed as "director" his friend the Marquess Giuseppe Orlando, who had recently completed successful negotiations to open the friary at Pietrelcina. Almost immediately, Pio pressed the marquess to commence construction. Orlando recalled: "He always took it out on me. Each evening he used to elbow me in the sides that I avoided sitting beside him."...

    And so, in the spring of 1947, Padree Pio blessed the first stone and, on May 19, 1947, ground was broken for a road leading to the site of the hospital by twenty hired by Orlando for the purpose. When he learned of the project, a prominent physician in Foggia said publicly, "They're crazy! A hospital on a mountain!" Others.. commented on the folly of the impossible project...

    Money remained a problem, as Padre Pio refused to seek bank loans; and despite a gift of three and a half million francs from Emmanuele Brunatto, now wealthy Paris businessman... It was then that the English economist Barbara Ward came to the rescue... and was particularly interested in the work of the U.N. Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), ... Ward, then the baroness of Lodsworth wrote that the marquess urged her to stop at Foggia on her way to Taranto "and allow him to take me up to San Giovanni Rotondo to encounter the saintly Padre Pio, who, with his stigmata, his endless hours in the confessional, and his reputation for healing the sick, as already the drawing power for immense pilgrimages from Italy and ... other lands."...

    The next day Ward attended Padre Pio's Mass and was deeply impressed.... Ward and Sanguinetti began to wonder whether the Casa might qualify for an aid from UNRRA, which had as its priority the restoration of health services in war-ravaged areas... Ward contacted her fiance, Commander Jackson, asking for funding for the hospital as part of the rehabilitation of the foggia region.... On June 21, 1948, the UNRRA awarded a grand of four hundred million lire to the Italian government for La Casa... To Padre Pio's immense rage and stupefaction, the Italian government passed son only two hundred fifty million lire to the Casa....

    Work now proceeded rapidly. Lupi was able to maintain a payroll of three hundred fifty workers... To raise money, Padre Pio authorized lotteries, raffles, theatrical shows, artistic evenings, and even the showing of carefully screened movies... Large contributions began to come in from individuals from all over the world, but especially America and Switzerland.

    In connection with the CASA arose the "Prayer Groups," promoted and encouraged by the new magazine. We will recall that Padre Pio had been organizing informal prayer groups from the days when he was in Foggia... When asked his purpose for organizing the prayer groups, he answered, "To bring souls to the Lord, to encourage them to pray ... together ... with Jesus," insisting that "this certainly displeases Satan." By the the time he died, Padre Pio's "Prayer Army" numbered seven hundred groups in 14 countries with a membership of more than seventy thousand. On July 26, 1954, the outpatient clinic of the Casa was blessed and opened....                                                                       

    Finally the great day arrived, on May 5, 1956. A crowd of more than 15,000 was present for the inauguration of the Casa...