# 68 OF 70 - THIS HAPPY BOOK REPORT ON PADRE PIO

IN PURSUIT OF THE TRUTH - HTTP://WWW.CINOPSBEGONEBLOGSPORT.COM - WED. SEP. 23, 2020

 

PADRE PIO: THE TRUE STORY - C. BERNARD RUFFIN

Chapter 34 - PADRE PIO LIVES  p. 379-383

Preface:

    Yesterday on EWTN, from Pietrelicina, Italy, there was a Solemn Mass in honor of St. Padre Pio. It was also a Memorial of St. Pius of Pietrelcina Priest. It marked the 52nd anniversary of Padre Pio's death. Today, there is also a Mass St. Pius of Petrelcina. TODAY, at 1 P.M. on TV (EWTN) "Miracles of Padre Pio." (I believe.)

 

"When Padre Pio was laid to rest, many newspapers predicted that San Giovanni Rotondo would dry up an die like an uprooted plant, that it would become a virtual ghost town. But such was not the case, Padre Pio frequently remarked, "I can be of more use to you in heaven than I have been on earth," and many believed that in the years since 1968 he has been true to his word.

 

    In the decades following his passing, the number of pilgrims, far from diminishing, has increased each year, to the point in 1990 plans were being drawn up for a giant church seating at least 10,000 people, with a dining hall for 1000 places and first-aid stations adjoining. The Casa has tripled in size, and 20 years after Padre Pio's death serves 1,200 patients and has 300 physicians in attendance and is generally considered one of the finest hospitals in Europe.

 

    An outpatient clinic was scheduled to open late in the 1990. In the 1980s construction was begun on 400 apartments for retired persons and three spiritual retreat centers. By 1990 the institutions for handicapped children founded by Padre Pio were serving more than 2,000 patients. The prayer groups, by the same year, had tripled since Padre Pio's death. As one of the friars remarked, "There's an awful lot of life coming out of that tomb!

 

    Far from receding into the mists of history, Padre Pio, since his death, has enjoyed an increasing celebrity, and, twenty years after his death, according to Kenneth Woodward, religion editor of Newsweek, "remains the object of a cult that is superseded in size only by those centered on the shrines to the Virgin Mary."

 

    Devotion to Padre Pio has been shown not only by ordinary believers, but by priests, bishops, cardinals, and even Pope John Paul II. Speaking to a group of eighteen thousand pilgrims at the Vatican on the occasion of the 15th of Pio's death, the pontiff praised the Capuchin who "for almost 50 years lived out and realized his religious consecration to the God almost exclusively in continuous, persistent, and fervent prayer, and in the ministry of reconciliation, guiding and directing thousands of the faithful who were seeking the authentic way of of perfection and of Christian holiness." 

 

    The Holy Father, who, as a cardinal, had visited San Giovanni in 1974, returned on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of father Pio's death, addressed a massive crowd at a park constructed specially for the occasion, and prayed at the tomb of the stigmatized friar. The same year saw a visit by Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who also prayed before Padre Pio's sarcophagus.  

 

    The graffiti that one occasionally sees in southern Italy, proclaiming, "Padre Pio lives!"is, for many, literal and not figurative. Many spiritual children to encounter the friar in visions, bi-locations, and more frequently, the "aroma of paradise." There have been "sightings" of him in Ireland and at the site of the alleged Marian apparitions at Medjugorje, Yugoslavia...

 

    While he lived, Padre Pio's family were seldom if ever, recipients of healing graces. It will be recalled that most of Pio's nieces and nephews died early and tragic deaths....

 

George H. Kubeck