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

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

IN PURSUIT OF THE TRUTH - HTTP://WWW.CINOPSBEGONEBLOGSPOT.COM - TUES. DEC. 17/19

Chapter 15 The Friar and the Archbishop 181-188, excerpts

    "Between 1919 and 1922, Padre Pio struggled to ignore the controversy that swirled about him. His life was the altar, the confessional, and the prayer chapel. He had time for little else, really, since by early 1920 he was working a nineteen-hour day... Yet even if he refused to carry on a correspondence with most of those who wrote to him, he promised nevertheless to "pray very hard for them, that they might be illuminated concerning the things they desire...

   
 "Pio's spiritual life continued with its highs and lows. He agonized over "the failure of men to respond to heavenly favors." In October 1930, he wrote to Padre Benedetto: "The thought of being unable to bring spiritual relief to those that Jesus sends me, the thought of so many souls who foolishly want to justify their evil in defiance of their Chief Good afflicts me, tortures me, martyrs me, overcharges my mind, and rends my spirit ... I want to live, so as to be of use to my brethren in exile, and, on the other hand, I wish to die to be united with my heavenly Spouse."

  
  "In the same vein the Capuchin stigmatist wrote, again to Benedetto, on November 20, 1921:

"Everything can be summed up in this: I am devoured by the love of God and love of my neighbor. God is always fixed in my mind and stamped in my heart. I never lose sight of Him. I can admire His beauty, His smiles, His vexation, His mercy, His vengeance, or, rather the rigor of justice....

      
"Meanwhile, the secular clergy, especially the canons, the priests on the staff of the cathedral of Manfredonia, continued to bombard with complaints about Padre Pio, Archbishop Don Giuseppe Prencipe, a man who seems to have supported whatever party had the upper hand, had, like much of his flock, taken to making his confessions to Padre Pio. He wrote in his diary that he recognized that he was "in the presence of a man graced with at extraordinary gift." In 1920 the forty-eight-old archpriest warned Padre Pio, "I'm under great pressure from the canons to denounce you, and you're not praying for me!""If I didn't pray, things would be worse" Pio explained. Principe was mollified, and for the time being leaned toward Padre Pio.

    
  For the moment, any disturbances on the part of dissident and radical clergy were stifled by the terrible civil strife that was sweeping Italy and exploded with deadly violence in the heart of San Giovanni Rotondo. In the economic slump following the world war, Italy was plagued with strikes, lockouts, and labor violence. The Socialist won about a third of the seats in the 1919 parliamentary elections, and strife between that party and the increasingly powerful Fascists was growing.

   
 In San Giovanni Rotondo, the Socialists were the extreme left-wing variety. Although they did not actually call themselves Communist, they openly promised to bring about a "soviet regime." ...

   Despite Morcaldi (new mayor of San Giovanni Rotondo), efforts, the catastrophe occurred on October 14, Socialists tried to storm the city hall, haul down the flag of Italy, and replace it with the red flag of Marxism ... hordes of Fascists appeared on the scene, whereupon the two factions went at each other with sticks, stones and knives.... Within moments six people lay dead, seven more were dying, and more than eighty were injured. In tears, Morcaldi hurried to the friary, wailing, "Padre Pio! Padre Pio! What are we going to do?" Pio laid his hand on the mayor's shoulder and said, "Reconcile, my son, reconcile." Within a few days, Pio suggested a program of pacification to the mayor, Morcaldi announced the following proposals:

The inhabitants of San Giovanni were to be given a fuller voice in the municipal government...

A permanent Committee of Assistance was to be set up to aid the children of soldiers killed in war....

A system of good roads was to be built in the community and in the countryside...

 At the centre of the nascent hostility toward Padre Pio was the sixty-year-old archbishop of Malfredonia, Monsignor Pasquale Gagliardi.... It was alleged that fairly early in his career as archbishop, Gagliardi had been arrested by civil authorities on charges of raping a nun but that he was no prosecuted. Apparently, even in his sixties, Gagliardi was on several occasions publicly accused o sexual molestations and unchastity. On one occasion Gagliardi's valet testified that his employer was sexually corrupt.... George H. Kubeck