0. Introduction

This is the third installment in a series of articles surveying the evidence for Catholic miracles. My objective is to present the miracle case for Catholicism in a way that is rigorous enough to persuade those that are strongly predisposed towards skepticism. That means empirical data has to be inferred from primary sources and every skeptical explanation has to be excluded by multiple lines of evidence.

In this article, I focus on the evidence for the supernatural charisms of St. Pio. In the first section, I argue that skeptical explanations of his stigmata are not tenable. In the second section, I argue that skeptical explanations of his extreme hyperthermia are not tenable. In the third section, I argue that skeptical explanations of his healings are not tenable. In the fourth section, I argue that he was heroically virtuous. In the fifth section, I conclude the best explanation is that his charisms were divine vindication of Catholicism. In the sixth section, I respond to objections to that conclusion.

This article is much longer and more thorough than previous installments of this series. Nonetheless, I barely scratch the surface of the available evidence for the charisms of St. Pio. There are many charisms that don’t receive their own section (scrutiny of hearts, bilocation, levitation, radiance, prophecy, etc…) even though they are supported by overwhelming evidence. Moreover, I only discuss a fraction of the available evidence for the charisms that do receive their own section. This article should be regarded as a representative sample rather than a comprehensive summary.

1. Stigmata

St. Pio’s stigmata were extensively documented. The evidentiary record includes canonical investigations, medical examinations, photographs, and video footage.1

• (Onset) In private correspondence and sworn testimony, St. Pio reported that, on the morning of September 20th, 1918, while praying after Mass in the friary choir, he entered into an ecstatic state in which he perceived Christ in the posture of a man being crucified. Christ lamented the ingratitude of men, especially those with religious vocations. St. Pio asked what he could do, to which Christ replied, “I unite you to my Passion.” When St. Pio returned to his senses, he discovered that bloody lesions had spontaneously formed on his hands, feet, and side.

• (Evolution) From their onset in 1918 until their resolution in 1968, St. Pio’s lesions neither healed nor progressed in a manner consistent with natural physiology. The shapes and positions of the lesions on the hands and feet were consistent over time—circular, regular, and symmetrical on both sides of each appendage—but their depths were not. Sometimes, they presented as full-thickness perforations. Sometimes, they presented as extremely superficial. The lesion on the side was even more labile, varying in shape, position, and depth.

• (Exudation) St. Pio’s lesions continuously discharged blood through eschars. Chronic bleeding persisted for half a century. Throughout the early years, the lesions were “almost always bleeding, so much so that several diapers were soaked in blood each day.” In subsequent decades, the flow gradually diminished, but it never ceased altogether. Despite substantial loss of blood, St. Pio did not exhibit signs of anemia, hypotension, or pathological fatigue. Hematological tests confirmed that his blood and circulation remained completely normal.

• (Scent) St. Pio’s lesions and the blood that poured out of them were not malodorous. To the contrary, they sporadically emitted a very pleasant and intense scent. “Testimonies about the perfume, before and after death, are innumerable: alone they would be enough to fill a large volume.” The scent was “sensed at times, in waves, inside the cell and outside, when he walks by, in his spot in the choir, even from a distance…” Bandages, clothes, and hair retained the scent for long periods of time after being removed from contact with St. Pio.

• (Resolution) In the final years of St. Pio’s life, his lesions gradually disappeared. By September 22nd, 1968—the date of his last Mass—only the lesion on his left palm remained. On September 23rd, 1968, St. Pio passed away. Within minutes of his death, his hands, feet, and chest were examined and photographed. “The skin, in those points referred to, was the same as that of any other part of the body, soft, elastic, and mobile…. The appearance, color, and consistency did not reveal anything in particular, nor did they reveal the presence of signs of previous incisions, lacerations, wounds, sores, or inflammatory reactions.”

1.1 - Lesions

An adequate theory of St. Pio’s stigmata has to explain the onset, evolution, and resolution of the anatomical lesions on his hands, feet, and left side:2

• (September, 1918) On September 20th and September 21st, parishioners and friars begin to notice that there are lesions on St. Pio’s hands, that he is having difficulty walking, and that his face is redder than usual. A few days later, Fr. Paolino informs the convent that “Padre Pio had received… the Wounds of the Lord, that is, the ‘stigmata’ of Jesus in his heart, in his hands, and in his feet.”

• (October, 1918) In private correspondence with Fr. Benedetto, provincial minister of the Capuchins, St. Pio provides a first-hand account of his stigmatization:

What shall I tell you regarding what you ask me about how my crucifixion occurred? My God, what confusion and humiliation I experience in having to manifest what You have worked in this wretched creature of Yours!

It was the morning of the twentieth of the past month, after the celebration of Holy Mass, when I was overtaken by rest, like a gentle sleep. All the internal and external senses, as well as the very faculties of the soul, found themselves in an indescribable stillness. In all of this there was total silence around me and within me; immediately there followed a great peace and an abandonment to complete privation of everything, and a resting in that very ruin. All of this happened in an instant.

And while all this was taking place, I saw before me a mysterious person, similar to the one seen on the evening of the fifth of August, differing only in this: that his hands, his feet, and his side were dripping with blood. His sight terrified me; what I felt at that moment within myself I would not know how to express. I felt I was dying, and I would have died had the Lord not intervened to sustain my heart, which I felt was leaping out of my chest.

The vision of the person withdraws, and I notice that my hands, feet, and side were pierced and dripping with blood. Imagine the tearing that I experienced then—and that I continue to experience almost every day.

The wound of the heart pours forth blood continually, especially from Thursday evening until Saturday. My Father, I am dying of pain because of the tearing and because of the subsequent confusion that I experience in the depths of my soul. I fear that I will die from loss of blood if the Lord does not listen to the groans of my poor heart and, by withdrawing this operation from me, put an end to it…

Your most affectionate son,
Friar Pio

• (February, 1919) Fr. Benedetto examines St. Pio’s lesions. In private correspondence with another priest, he reports that “[Padre Pio] doesn’t have spots or marks, but real sores perforating his hands and feet. I observed the one he has on his side: a real tear that continually drips blood… and when he celebrates Mass, the gift is visible to the public, since he has to keep his bare hands up.” In a conversation with a doctor, he clarifies that description:

If I were questioned by higher authorities on this particular point, I would have to respond and confirm under oath—such is the certainty of the impression received—that, by fixing one’s gaze on the wounds of the palmar regions of his hands, it would have been easy to discern, in their details, a written text or an object previously placed on the opposite side of them.

• (May, 1919) Dr. Angelo Merla, atheist mayor of San Giovanni Rotondo, examines the lesions. He concludes that “these lesions could hardly be classified as tuberculosis,” but “due to the lack of a complete examination,” he was “unable to determine their precise nature.” Dr. Luigi Romanelli, chief surgeon at the civil hospital of Barletta, also examines the lesions and describes them as follows:

In the palmar regions of both hands, and more precisely at the level of the third metacarpal, simple inspection reveals a reddish, viscous pigmentation of the skin over a surface approximately the size of a bronze five-cent coin on the right hand and a two-cent coin on the left; the contours are slightly frayed and the shape is almost circular.

Upon closer observation, one notes that in this area, instead of normal skin, there is an epithelium—or rather a shiny membrane—somewhat raised at the center, forming a very small button-like elevation, from which radiate many fine striations that are darker and tending almost toward black. The entire area is raised above the surrounding tissues, which are intact and normal. On palpation, delicately performed, no bony or muscular resistance is perceived beneath; instead, one notes that this membrane is distinctly elastic, and there is no actual opening nor any discharge of fluid.

In the dorsal regions of both hands, at points almost corresponding to those just described, the skin presents identical features. Applying the thumb to the palm of the hand and the index finger to the dorsum, thus covering in this manner the two described zones and exerting pressure—which proves extremely painful—one has the exact perception of a void existing between the two fingers, separated only by membranes and by thin, soft tissue which, under pressure, gives the sensation of sand, while no resistance is perceived either from the bones or from the soft tissues normally present in these regions. All active and passive movements of the hands are performed without difficulty and are perfectly physiological. From this it follows that these pigmented zones are nothing other than membranes covering an opening which originates on one side and terminates on the other, such that there is a discontinuity of tissues through the thickness of the hand.

On the dorsum of both feet there is furthermore noted a circular area, about the size of a five-cent coin, likewise covered by a membrane of vivid red color and shiny appearance, with well-defined and precise contours, surrounded by normal tissues. On palpation, this membrane is likewise elastic and gives the impression of an underlying void. In the plantar regions identical areas are observed, with the same characteristics. By compressing simultaneously both the dorsal and plantar regions, it becomes evident that an empty space exists and that the foot is perforated, the openings being covered by the described membrane. As in the hands, so in the feet all movements of the joints and toes are normal and provoke no disturbance whatsoever.

In the left hemithorax, and more precisely between the mammillary line and the anterior axillary line, approximately at the level of the sixth left intercostal space, there is observed a linear, lacerated wound, oriented along the direction of the ribs, about seven centimeters in length, with clean and slightly puckered margins, involving the soft tissues. On inspection, the wound lies directly from below upward and penetrates somewhat from outside inward, with arterial bleeding. As in all thoracic wounds, probing cannot be performed, and therefore it is difficult to judge how far it penetrates and what direction it assumes within the cavity. The characteristics of the wound are those of a cutting injury.

All of these lesions date, as his superiors report, from September 1918. In my judgment, these wounds cannot be classified among ordinary wounds, whether of infectious or traumatic origin. In the former, the principal characteristic is suppuration, which, while on the one hand impedes healing, on the other is always the effect of the action of some localized microorganism—something which is absolutely lacking in the lesions described above, as even a layperson in matters of health can observe. As for the latter, especially those of the hands and feet, it is logically absurd that a trauma—of whatever nature and by whatever means produced—could injure deep tissues without first injuring the superficial ones, weak and poorly resistant as they are, such as those observed in the hands and feet. Nor could one, excluding the thoracic wound, invoke and explain the lesions of the feet and hands by appealing to a healing already achieved with residual ecchymosis, because it is known that in healing by second intention the skin and epithelium are always the last to reproduce themselves, after processes of granulation and new tissue formation, while in the hands and feet the lesions show no tendency toward such tegumentary formation.

In the thoracic wound as well, although without any suitable medication, as I had the opportunity to observe twice at different hours, there is not the slightest trace of suppuration; instead, there issues red, physiological blood. Cases of self-injury due to a morbid state of the nervous system have indeed been recorded, into which one might attempt to classify the lesions described; but before rendering such a judgment it must be considered that even such lesions must follow the course of all others—that is, either produce complications of some kind or heal—and that, whatever the nervous state may be, it is not possible to injure underlying tissues without first injuring the superficial ones, just as it is not possible, by any effort whatsoever, to maintain a lesion—however slight—always in the same state, nor do these wounds have a course of healing different from that of others.

Against all these considerations stands the certain fact that Padre Pio’s lesions, from September until today, preserve the same appearance and remain in the same condition, and what is even more astonishing, they produce no disturbance and no difficulty in the function of the limbs, as ordinary wounds invariably do. It must therefore be excluded that the etiology of Padre Pio’s lesions is of natural origin; rather, the producing agent must be sought, without fear of error, in the supernatural, and the phenomenon constitutes in itself something not explainable by human science alone.

Dr. Luigi Romanelli of Barletta

Note — The lesions were observed on different days and at different hours without any modification being detected.

• (July, 1919) Dr. Amico Bignami, atheist professor of medical pathology at the Royal University of Rome, examines the lesions and describes them as follows:

The cutaneous lesions observed on the dorsum and palm of the hands, on the dorsum and sole of the feet, and on the left side of the thorax, merit a careful examination.

On the palm of the right hand one observes a blackish eschar, roughly round in shape, partly detached from the underlying skin, extremely thin, involving the epidermis and perhaps the most superficial part of the dermis, with clear contours and sharply defined margins. The surrounding skin appears normal, not infiltrated, and intensely colored over a narrow halo due to iodine tincture. The area of the eschar, and also the nearby skin, is painful to pressure. An identical eschar, though perhaps more superficial, is found on the dorsum of the hand, in the region corresponding to that observed on the palm, specifically at the level of the 3rd and 4th metacarpals in their middle portion. This eschar as well, and the surrounding skin, are strongly colored with iodine tincture.

Similar and perfectly symmetrical lesions are found on the left hand. On careful palpation, the metacarpal bones are felt to be perfectly normal in volume and shape, on the right as on the left; the same applies to the soft parts (subcutaneous tissue, muscles, etc). As already stated, there is evident hyperesthesia of the skin of the hands and also of the muscles on compression.

On the dorsum of the right foot, corresponding to the 2nd metatarsal, one observes a small, extremely superficial, dark, roundish eschar, intensely colored, together with a thin halo of surrounding skin stained with iodine tincture. On the sole of the foot, a small roundish area of skin is intensely stained with iodine and presents no alteration except for the iodic coloration. On the left foot, identical alterations are present, perfectly symmetrical in extent, position, and characteristics. As with the hands, there is superficial hyperesthesia of the dorsum and sole of the feet. No inflammatory alterations of the skin surrounding the described lesions are recognizable to the naked eye or by palpation.

In the left thorax, between the anterior and mid-axillary lines, one observes a cross-shaped figure, whose longer branch, arranged obliquely, runs from the 5th to the 9th rib reaching the costal margin, while the transverse branch is about half as long. Corresponding to this figure, the skin is dry, variegated rose-brown in appearance, and resembles that observed in superficial epidermal abrasions; it is intensely stained with iodine. The skin is not recognizably infiltrated and is very sensitive to touch; it does not bleed during examination. At no point does the lesion deepen; the dermis is not actually damaged. As already noted, throughout the thoracic region there is marked superficial hyperesthesia and lively vasomotor reactions.

Repeatedly questioned about the genesis of the various lesions, Padre Pio replies that they all formed at the same time in the past September. It seems they began with local pain and the oozing of a few drops of blood; then brown films formed, which from time to time detach; and when this happens, Padre Pio states, beneath the film (eschar) that detaches, another is found already formed. At times these lesions still bleed. When these lesions formed, Padre Pio did not experience any other somatic manifestation that attracted his attention. These details, however, cannot be considered truly certain, because Padre Pio admits that he did not pay much attention to the succession of events or to their examination.

Questioned as to why he applies iodine tincture, Padre Pio replies that he uses it as a disinfectant a couple of times a week and sometimes more often; he also uses it because, in his words, if he does not apply it, the lesions easily bleed. He further states that he has used the same tincture since September, that is, an old preparation. Questioned as to why he applies iodine tincture to the sole of the foot in a small circumscribed roundish area where there is no cutaneous lesion, he says that this area sometimes bleeds, and therefore he applies iodine tincture there.

Regarding the nature of the described lesions, one may affirm that they represent a pathological product, whose genesis may be explained by the following hypotheses:
a) that they were produced artificially and voluntarily;
b) that they are the manifestation of a morbid state;
c) that they are partly the product of a morbid state and partly artificial.

I do not believe that one can readily admit, especially in the absence of direct proof, the first hypothesis. The difficulties—often insurmountable—encountered when attempting to differentiate so-called self-inflicted lesions from similar pathological lesions are well known. The differential criteria that have been invoked to distinguish ulcerations and cutaneous neuroses produced artificially from multiple pathological cutaneous neuroses observed not infrequently in neuropathic and psychopathic subjects, as well as in organic diseases of the nervous system and in neuroses, are generally fallacious, as various authors who have dealt with the subject acknowledge; and often the psychological criterion is the one to which we must have recourse. The impression of sincerity that Padre Pio has made on me prevents me from thinking outright of simulation.

The second hypothesis is, at least in part, plausible. Pathologists are familiar with the so-called “multiple neurotic necrosis of the skin,” which many have studied, and also with the pathological phenomenon of hematidrosis. The facts collected in the medical literature concerning multiple cutaneous necroses are extensively reported and discussed in the recent work of Cassirer on vasomotor-trophic neuroses. The alterations found in Padre Pio’s hands are nothing other than the result of a superficial necrosis of the epidermis and perhaps of the most external parts of the dermis, and they may be likened to the neurotic necroses cited above. The thoracic lesion is nothing more than the result of an abrasion of the epidermis.

What cannot be explained with our present knowledge of neurotic necroses is the perfectly symmetrical localization of the described lesions and their persistence without notable modifications, according to the infirmarian’s account. These facts, however, may in my opinion find a satisfactory interpretation in the third hypothesis mentioned above. We may indeed suppose that the described lesions began as pathological products (multiple neurotic necrosis of the skin) and were, perhaps unconsciously, through a phenomenon of suggestion, completed in their symmetry and artificially maintained by a chemical agent, for example iodine.

I have already noted that on the soles of the feet there is no necrobiotic alteration of the skin, but only a brown pigmentation due to iodine tincture applied to areas corresponding to the extremely superficial lesions on the dorsum of the feet.
It is known that old iodine tincture, due to hydriodic acid that develops in it, becomes strongly irritating and caustic; this fact is not sufficiently widespread knowledge among the general public and perhaps is unknown even to some physicians. It is therefore natural that repeated application of the same tincture over many months may have accentuated pre-existing cutaneous alterations and even produced them in normal tissues.

This seems to me the most reliable interpretation of the facts I have observed. In any case, one may affirm that there is nothing in the described cutaneous alterations that cannot be the product of a morbid state and the action of known chemical agents.

Prof. Amico Bignami

Dr. Bignami is convinced that, in the absence of chemical irritants, St. Pio’s lesions will heal. At his request, a committee of friars is ordered to ensure that the lesions are kept sealed and untreated for a period of eight days. He departs from the convent before this experiment is carried out, so his final report omits the results:

We, the undersigned, attest under oath that, having received from the Most Reverend Father Pietro of Ischitella the order to bandage the wounds of Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, Capuchin priest, we have ascertained the following:

1° The condition of the wounds during the eight days remained the same, except on the final day, on which they took on a vivid red color.

2° Every day, as can be verified from the cloths that we preserve, all the wounds produced blood; on the final day it was more abundant, so much so that we were compelled, while he was celebrating [Mass], to send a cloth in order to dry the blood that was flowing over the backs of his hands.

It is to be noted that, in performing these bandagings, we did not use any medicinal substance and that, although having complete trust in Padre Pio, we nevertheless removed—so as to avoid any suspicion—even the small bottle of iodine tincture that he kept in his room.

In witness whereof, etc.

Signed:

1° Father Paolino of Casacalenda, Capuchin Superior
2° Father Basilio of Mirabello Sannitico
3° Father Ludovico of San Marco in Lamis

• (October, 1919) Dr. Giorgio Festa, a well-known surgeon in private practice in Rome, examines the lesions and describes them as follows:

On the palms and on the dorsum of the feet, and in the anterior region of the left thorax, he presents lesions that deserve to be studied in particular.

On the palm of the left hand, approximately corresponding to the midpoint of the third metacarpal, there is a lesion of circular shape with a diameter of slightly more than two centimeters. This lesion, like all the others observed on him, has a reddish-brown coloration and is covered by a blackish eschar, the surface of which is furrowed by striations arranged in an almost radiating pattern, and which most probably results from the drying of the blood that has flowed from it. He states that from time to time this eschar detaches, first at the margins of the lesion, then little by little toward the center, until it falls off completely; and then the base of the lesion itself appears reddish-brown and smooth.

The depth of the lesion described does not seem very great; nevertheless, it certainly reaches and also involves the thickness of the subcutaneous tissue, since, when invited to close his fist, he is unable to clench it completely, and only with great difficulty can he reach, with the tips of his fingers, the corresponding thenar and hypothenar eminences. As I have said, this lesion is circular in shape, with contours whose line of demarcation is extremely sharp, so that the immediately surrounding skin shows neither edema, nor redness, nor infiltration, nor any other trace of inflammatory reaction.

The underlying metacarpal presents anatomically no discontinuity: it appears intact and regular throughout its length; perhaps a radiographic examination could bring to light alterations that cannot be detected with ordinary means of observation. In the dorsal region of the same left hand, a little closer to the metacarpo-phalangeal joint of the third finger, and therefore not in exact correspondence with the palmar lesion, there is another lesion, analogous to the first in shape and characteristics, but with a more superficial eschar and more restricted contours. With the same characteristics one could describe the lesions present on the dorsum and on the palm of the right hand. While I examine them, small drops of blood ooze from their margins.

In order also to observe the lesions on his feet, I myself help him to remove his stockings, which I note are soaked with blood-tinged serosity. On the dorsum of both feet, and precisely corresponding to the midpoint of the second metatarsal, I likewise observe a circular lesion, reddish-brown in color, covered by a thin blackish eschar, which exactly reproduces the characteristics of those described on the hands; perhaps these are somewhat smaller and more superficial. Here too the underlying metatarsal appears intact throughout its extent; here too the skin surrounding the lesions shows no trace of infiltration, nor of edema, nor of inflammatory reaction; here too there is a slight but continuous oozing of blood-tinged serosity. On the soles of the feet, at points that correspond almost exactly to those on the dorsum, two further lesions are observed in each plantar region, sharply defined in their contours and perfectly identical to the preceding ones.

Direct pressure applied to all these lesions, both on the hands and on the feet, even when exerted gently, proves to be extremely painful; and painful as well—though to a proportionally lesser degree—is also the sensation that contact of the fingers awakens in the healthy tissues surrounding them. Even more intense, although he strives to conceal them, are the sufferings caused by the lesions on his feet when walking; hence the difficulty he has in remaining on his feet for long periods, and hence his slow and sometimes uncertain gait.

In the anterior region of the left side of the chest, approximately two transverse finger-breadths below the mammary papilla, there is a final and more interesting lesion, in the form of an inverted cross. The longitudinal arm of this measures approximately seven centimeters in length: it begins at the anterior axillary line at the level of the fifth intercostal space, and descends obliquely to near the cartilaginous margin of the ribs, furrowing the skin at a point which, as I have already noted, lies about two transverse finger-breadths below the mammary papilla. The transverse arm of the cross is about four centimeters long; it intersects not at a right angle but somewhat obliquely and at roughly five centimeters from the point of origin of the longitudinal arm, and it appears broader and more rounded at its inferior extremity.

This cross-shaped figure is extremely superficial: it involves only the epidermis and perhaps the outermost layer of the dermis. The two arms of which it is composed are ribbon-like, have a width of about half a centimeter, with very sharp margins and contours, except at the lower extremity of the longitudinal arm, where it fades imperceptibly into the normal tissues, almost like a shading. Its coloration, like that of the other lesions which Padre Pio presents on his hands and feet, is reddish-brown; a thin and brief film covers its central portion, and here too the surrounding tissues offer no traces of redness, infiltration, or of edema; however, their painful hypersensitivity is more intense and more widespread than in the normal tissues bordering the other lesions…

As regards their origin, it emerges from the data collected that they would have all appeared together about thirteen months ago, and precisely toward the end of September 1918. Today, after so long a period of time, they preserve the same vividness of characteristics that they presented in the first moments of their appearance, and which throughout thirteen months they have never ceased to display. These lesions, except for the formation of the slight eschar that covers them and which from time to time detaches, falls off, and then reproduces itself, have never, in thirteen months, shown even the slightest tendency to cicatrize.

They are certainly not the result of a local disease, nor the expression of constitutional infirmities. The reddish-brown coloration that they have today is the same as that of the first days in which they appeared; the painful sensitivity that they had at that time has in no way diminished; and the oozing of blood-tinged serosity observed by me, which recurs at fairly frequent intervals, has in no way altered the rhythm with which it manifests itself. What pathological product can for so long remain so tenaciously stationary, both in the characteristics that distinguish it and in the manifestations it produces?

If I had to express my thought regarding the manner in which these lesions were produced, I would have to exclude that they were determined by a cutting instrument, or by the application of potentially irritating chemical substances. They are not the consequence of a cutting wound, because they present none of the characteristics of such lesions; nor are they due to the application of chemical substances, because the action of these never remains strictly confined, as in our case would have occurred, to the injured area, but extends beyond its boundaries, gradually fading into the surrounding normal tissues, with a reaction whose exponent is always given by a more or less notable degree of redness, edema, and infiltration. And in any case, once the action of the injuring cause has ceased, whether it be of chemical nature or not, it is natural that the effects should also cease; it is natural, in other words, that from that moment the vital reaction of nature, even if not aided by the means that the art advises, should provide on its own account and with its own energies—as we always observe in all lesions—for the progressive repair of the damage that has occurred.

How then is it that the lesions observed in Padre Pio preserve so tenaciously the characteristics and the vividness of the first moment in which they manifested themselves? … Apart from the consideration that iodine, applied every two or three days as Padre Pio did, would rather have served to facilitate the cicatrization of his lesions; apart also from the reflection that, even making use of a non-recent iodine tincture and perhaps containing traces of hydriodic acid, if this had been capable of acting as an irritating element for the lesions themselves, it could not therefore have spared the surrounding normal tissues its effusive action, provoking there a more or less intense inflammatory reaction—which in reality is lacking and has always been lacking; apart from all this, there stands the fact that Padre Pio for more than three months, by order of his superiors, no longer applies anything at all to his lesions, and nevertheless these always preserve the same identical characteristics…

To express with some exactness the impression I received, I should say that they appear rather as the result of prolonged contact with a glowing metallic body… Except that even here the lesion produced by an incandescent metallic body presents in its contours, immediately after its application, a zone of inflammatory reaction that gradually fades into the surrounding normal tissues; even here, once the action that produced it has ceased, the natural process of repair begins and progresses always, up to the complete cicatrization of the lesion that was its effect. Whereas those observed on Padre Pio, as we have already repeatedly noted, have contours that are extremely sharp, no sign of reaction is offered by the tissues that surround them, and they present no tendency to cicatrize, even after so long a time from their appearance, and notwithstanding their small extent and limited depth…

In conclusion, therefore, the lesions that Padre Pio presents, and the hemorrhage that manifests from them, have an origin which our knowledge is far from being able to explain…

Doctor Giorgio Festa

• (August, 1920) Dr. Festa and Dr. Romanelli return for a joint examination. Dr. Festa writes a second report that summarizes their observations as follows:

The lesion present in the anterior region of the left side of the chest retains, as in my first visit, the form of an inverted cross, whose longitudinal arm reproduces the same identical characteristics it exhibited at that time. The transverse arm, however—perhaps somewhat wider and longer—displays a pale pink coloration, like that of a recently formed scar. This appearance is most probably due to the detachment of the thin eschar that had covered it. Although Padre Pio attempted, in response to my questioning, to minimize the extent of the hemorrhage that had occurred from it in the preceding days, in order to examine it we had to remove from his side a cloth—much larger than an ordinary handkerchief—completely soaked with blood, which he had applied there only the day before.

The lesions on the backs of the hands present the same characteristics that I had observed and recorded the previous October. That is to say, they have the appearance of round eschars, with a diameter of approximately two centimeters, of a reddish-brown color. In their surrounding contours, the skin—perfectly normal—even when examined with a good magnifying lens, reveals no trace of edema, infiltration, or redness. Upon examination of these lesions by direct pressure, the underlying metacarpal presents no discontinuity. The only new detail, and one that concerns solely the lesion on the back of the right hand, is that this now appears somewhat closer to the corresponding carpo-metacarpal joint line; while lower down, at the point previously occupied by it, there exists a whitish, glossy scar, identical in extent and form to the lesion in question.

On the palms of both hands, the wounds are evidently enlarged and deeper. Examined with the magnifying lens to better fix their details, they appear to result from several confluent lesions, over which the blood that exudes from them, through successive stratifications, has produced a broad reddish-brown eschar, variegated in certain areas, in others more protruding and shaped like large buttons of a ruby-red color. All around extends a broad halo of bright blood; when cleansed with a cloth soaked in ethyl alcohol and glycerinated starch, the skin beneath and immediately adjacent to their margins appears normal and without any trace of reaction. Padre Pio is unable to clench his fist; and in the vicinity of his wounds he shows an intense hypersensitivity, which he scarcely manages to conceal during my examination. This sensitivity becomes acute pain when I apply, with the pad of my fingers, the pressure necessary to assess the anatomical condition of the underlying metacarpus.

And now we come finally to the lesions that he presents on the soles and on the dorsum of the feet. In my report of November 15th, albeit briefly, I believe I described with sufficient clarity the characteristics I had observed in them: they were true and proper anatomical lesions of the tissues, well circumscribed, and perfectly resembling those I had already observed on the dorsum and palms of his hands. It was therefore not without surprise that, upon my return from San Giovanni, reading the report of a distinguished professor from our University—who had visited him about three months before me—I encountered a factual assertion in full contrast with my own observations, which I too had endeavored to present with the utmost objective rigor of judgment.

In that report, in fact, the distinguished professor, after having described the various lesions of the chest and hands with objective characteristics not dissimilar from those I had observed, when turning to those of the feet does not hesitate to affirm that on the soles there exists no alteration of the skin, but only a brown pigmentation—so he writes—due to the application of iodine tincture in the area corresponding to very superficial lesions on the dorsum of the feet. I must say that upon reading this deduction I was somewhat disconcerted, because, given that it was a precise statement by a scientist, it seemed to me necessary to consider it truly the result of his direct experimental observation—that is, that by making use of chemical reagents capable of better fixing and dissolving iodine, he had succeeded in eliminating what had appeared to me to be genuine eschars formed by sanguineous stratifications, and that with his own eyes he had then observed that the underlying skin truly presented no anatomical alteration of tissue.

Certain, however, that my investigative spirit and my senses had not so badly failed me in an inquiry of such importance, I wished to question the superior who had been present at that examination, and I then had to persuade myself that no experimental test had in fact been carried out by the eminent colleague in order to arrive at that conclusion. Consequently, that conclusion, even in his own mind, ought to have been considered merely the effect of a simple subjective hypothetical persuasion, and not the logical consequence of a real factual verification.

Therefore, notwithstanding the fact that his assertion—so decisively formulated—was far from having disturbed the serenity of my judgment or the certainty of my impression, when I returned to visit Padre Pio I did not fail to bring with me a good magnifying lens, so as to be able to evaluate with precision even the minutest details of his wounds; and I also brought the most effective chemical solvents of iodine, such as ethyl alcohol and glycerinated starch, in order to be able, with these, if necessary, to eliminate the alleged plantar iodic pigmentations and thus procure for myself the satisfaction of loyally recognizing any error of judgment into which, in my first visit, I might have fallen.

Nevertheless, neither ethyl alcohol nor glycerinated starch, applied to the lesions of the hands and feet of Padre Pio, were able to bring to light even the smallest trace of iodine, nor to expose even a minuscule fragment of normal skin beneath them. What is in fact the case is that, during his visit, the distinguished professor very opportunely forbade Padre Pio the use of iodine tincture—which the latter, hoping to obtain healing, applied to his wounds every two or three days; not content with this, he even wished to guarantee healing—especially of the wound on the chest—by means of a proper bandaging, through which he assured his superiors that within a short time they would certainly be healed.

In reality, while the use of iodine tincture was from that moment entirely suppressed, and the bandaging maintained in place for a period much longer than the distinguished scientist had advised, today—one year after that visit, and two years after the appearance of the lesions—those wounds which, with the suppression of iodine and with appropriate medical treatment, ought to have healed so rapidly, are still present in their full vigor, and are more extensive and more bleeding than I had found them in October…

Once the shoes were removed, upon the white socks that Padre Pio was wearing, and in correspondence with the lesions present on the soles and on the dorsum of both feet, we observed a large circular stain, moist and gleaming with blood, with which they had recently been soaked. Once the socks were also removed, the reddish-brown eschars that I had noted during my first visit had fallen away, and in the very same spot previously occupied by them we now observed instead a well-defined circular pink scar of equal dimensions, standing out sharply against the waxy pallor of the surrounding skin. At the center of this pink scar—approximately the size of a lentil, with an irregularly circular shape, with reddish-brown and re-entrant margins—we observed a true and proper continuous lesion, extending in depth and produced as though by a pointed instrument.

This continuous lesion, occupying the center of the pink scars that we had so carefully observed on the dorsum of both feet, finds a perfect correspondence in analogous and identical lesions that we discern in the plantar regions. Particularly interesting: the contour of these small lesions, with reddish-brown and re-entrant margins, at a certain point appears as if interrupted by a bluish mark with almost metallic reflections, sharply defined, which is certainly not a varicose cutaneous venule, and which gives the impression of a foreign body embedded in the sharply cut margin of the lesion itself. This conformation and this appearance are repeated exactly also in the lesions that Padre Pio presents on the soles of the feet.

After this observation, it becomes evident that those formations described by me as eschars during my first visit, and interpreted by Professor Bignami as cutaneous necrobiosis, were nothing other than superficial crusts of covering, due to the progressive stratification of blood oozing from the central lesion, which we have now been able to observe with such precision…

Dr. Giorgio Festa

• (June, 1921) Bishop Raffaello Rossi examines St. Pio. In a confidential report, he confirms that “the stigmata are there… it is impossible to deny it.” However, he denies that they are anatomical lesions. He remarks that “there is absolutely no breaking or opening up of the tissues...” He also remarks that “on the inferior extremities, the stigmata were about to disappear” and that “in his side, the sign is represented by a triangular spot, the color of red wine… not anymore, then, by a sort of upside-down cross, such as the one seen by Dr. Bignami and Dr. Festa…” In a sworn deposition, he questions St. Pio about the appearance of his lesions:

[Deposition of Padre Pio by Bishop Raffaello Rossi on June 20th, 1921]

Question: Could Your Paternity explain to me why there is a difference between the signs he has on his hands and those on his feet which seem cicatrized?

Answer: They don’t always keep the same appearance: At times they are more noticeable, at times less so; sometimes they look like they are about to disappear, but they don’t, and then come back, flourishing again. And this happens to all the signs, including the one on the side.

• (October, 1925) Dr. Festa and Dr. Merla examine the lesions during a hernia repair surgery. Dr. Festa reports that “I took the opportunity—without his awareness—to re-examine the wounds which I had first studied five years earlier, and which I now again observed to possess the very same characteristics I had described in my earlier reports.” He also reports that “I must add only this: the thin eschar beneath which, at the previous examination, I had found the wound on the left side of the chest covered, had now fallen away. As a result, the lesion appeared fresh and vividly red, cross-shaped, and bordered by short but clearly visible luminous radiations emanating from its margins.”

• (1925-1933) In a monograph published in 1933, Dr. Festa reports that “From 1925 to the present, I have had occasion to return at least ten or twelve times to the hermitage on Gargano…having always seen his hands, pierced and bleeding, during the most solemn moments of the celebration of the Holy Mass; having repeatedly discovered in his cell numerous diapers soaked and still damp with the blood that flowed from the wound on his side; having personally observed, very closely, despite the half-gloves with which he tries to hide it, the blood that drips between the fingers and the wounds on his hands; I am still in a position to affirm that the wounds of the crucifixion… are preserved even today, some twenty, with the same inexplicable characteristics noted upon my first observation.”

• (1954-1955) Dr. Luigi Pancaro, an internist, examines St. Pio for after-effects of tracheobronchitis. St. Pio reports a marked reduction in bloody exudate from all of his lesions. Dr. Pancaro confirms hemostasis and the absence of inflammatory processes with the respect to “the stigma of the left hand.” He refrains from inspecting the rest of the lesions due to an “overwhelming and embarrassing emotion that seized me.” Dr. Alberto Caserta, a radiologist from Foggia, takes X-rays of St. Pio’s skull, chest, hands, and feet. He reports that “absolutely nothing special is noticeable” at the level of the metacarpals and metatarsals.

• (1958-1967) In 1958, when St. Pio takes off his sweater to have it repaired, Fr. Pellegrino observes that the lesion on the side is “six or seven centimeters long,” “two or three centimeters wide,” and “very deep.” In 1964, while assisting St. Pio after a fall, Fr. Eusebio observes that the lesion on the side is “cross-shaped” with a “vertical arm” that is “six to seven centimeters long, slightly oblique, with its lower part shifted toward the left side” and a “transverse arm” that is “much shorter.” He also observes that it is “rather deep” and that “its margins” are “well-defined and without crusts.” Between 1965 and 1967, St. Pio asks Fr. Marcellino to help him change his socks. As he removes the sock, he observes that the upper sides of the feet do not show “any sign of a wound.” He does not observe the soles.

• (February, 1968) St. Pio collapses while cleaning his lesions. Fr. Alessio responds to his call for help. This gives him “the opportunity to see [the lesions] and verify their reality.” After removing small bloody encrustations that had detached from the top of St. Pio’s hands, he observed that “the wounds at the center of the upper parts of the hands were about one centimeter deep…” Within the lesions, he observes “partially clotted blood” which he “carefully and delicately” removes. However, he does not endeavor to remove all of the coagulated blood from the lesions, because he notices that “every movement” causes “spasm and pain.”

• (September, 1968) Fr. Carmelo Di Donato, superior of the Convent of San Giovanni Rotondo from 1964 to 1969, documents the resolution of the lesions:

During the five years that I remained with Padre Pio, can I say that I saw his stigmata? I answer without hesitation: yes. I must, however, specify that it was not at all easy to see them, even for me as Superior and for the confreres who lived with him. This was because he always wore stockings on his feet and half-gloves on his hands (that is, gloves made in such a way as to cover the palm, the back, and half of the fingers). He removed these gloves only during the celebration of Holy Mass…

To ask to see them deliberately—even as Superior—would have been an undelicate and highly unpleasant gesture, both because I had no motive or authorization to do so, and because by then the phenomenon of the stigmata was an established fact: discussed, examined, and admitted by everyone, at least as regards the existence of the wounds—always leaving, of course, to the Church the definitive judgment concerning their nature and origin.

It was commonly reasoned that over the course of fifty years (Padre Pio received the stigmata on 20 September 1918), a wound—especially one neither treated nor medicated—either heals or becomes gangrenous. The stigmata, therefore, were in my time already a fact beyond dispute, and for this reason even the Superior had no reason to go and verify what belonged to common knowledge…

About a month before Padre Pio’s death (which occurred on 23 September 1968), I heard circulating among the people the first rumors claiming that Padre Pio’s wounds were beginning to disappear, insofar as the hands, during the celebration of Mass, no longer appeared as wounded and covered with crust as before. I did not give much importance to this, nor did I concern myself with verifying personally whether it was true, accustomed as I was to all kinds of rumors that often circulated in that environment. I did, however, notice that when I touched or kissed Padre Pio’s hand, I no longer felt the crust of blood on either the back or the palm beneath the gloves.

On the night of 23 September 1968, immediately after Padre Pio’s death, aware that it was necessary to leave an official and authoritative testimony, I deliberately wished—together with other witnesses—to observe the stigmata at close range. I had to ascertain that the hands no longer appeared as I had seen them previously; rather, the wounds of the hands, the feet, and the side were completely closed over, without leaving any sign or trace of a scar. One may observe the photographs that were taken that same night and which are attached as documentation to this testimony.

Present with me were Father Raffaele of Sant’Elia a Pianisi (Padre Pio’s confessor), Reverend Father Mariano of Santa Croce di Magliano, Reverend Father Pellegrino of Sant’Elia a Pianisi (both assistants to Padre Pio), Doctor Giuseppe Sala (Padre Pio’s attending physician and current mayor of San Giovanni Rotondo), and Reverend Father Giacomo of Montemarano, who had been summoned to take the photographs for documentation.

This new fact truly presents mysterious aspects, both because of the disappearance of the stigmata and because of the absence of any trace of scarring. Nevertheless, it is beyond doubt that Padre Pio did in fact have the stigmata, as everyone was able to see and as thousands of photographs can demonstrate.

On the night of 23 September 1968, in the course of performing the customary pious rites accorded to the deceased, a small white film detached itself from Padre Pio’s left hand—the final residue of all the blood shed and of the muscular tissues that for fifty years had been consumed and destroyed. A similar white film, but much larger, had fallen from the hands in the sacristy on the morning of the previous day, 22 September 1968, at the moment when Padre Pio removed the half-gloves prior to the celebration of Holy Mass. Both were preserved in the archives of San Giovanni Rotondo.

It is necessary here to clarify that it is not accurate to say or to think that Padre Pio no longer had the stigmata for two or three months prior to his death. Rather, two or three months before dying, the wounds slowly began to close and to reduce the outflow of blood, until they appeared at death completely healed over and without any scar. Proof of this is the fact that precisely at the final moment the last small crust detached from the left hand. In a photograph of Padre Pio’s final Mass, taken on the morning of 22 September 1968 and attached to this deposition, one can see on the left hand the red of the crust in place of the wound, while the back of the right hand is completely white.

Padre Pio therefore continued to wear gloves up to the moment of his death, not in order to deceive, but—as always—to cover the wounds. In any case, during Holy Mass he always removed the gloves and showed his hands uncovered. The Mass was the time when he could most easily be observed by everyone; so much so that various spiritual sons, precisely during Mass, were able to verify the phenomenon and even take photographs.

With regard to the absence of any scar where the wounds had been, medical science will have to pronounce itself on this fact, which is physiologically inexplicable, since every deep wound always leaves the mark of a scar. It falls instead to theologians to explain the disappearance of the stigmata at the moment of death…

1.1.1 - Localization

The spatial distribution of St. Pio’s lesions corresponded to the Five Holy Wounds of Christ. Moreover, the lesions on the hands and feet were perfectly symmetrical, conforming to bilateral symmetry with respect to the left and right extremities, as well as to anteroposterior symmetry with respect to the front and back of each extremity. All of the doctors that examined the lesions, including Dr. Bignami, agreed that symmetrical localization could not be explained by natural pathology. No unconscious, involuntary mechanism has the spatial resolution to account for it.

1.1.2 - Depth

Fr. Benedetto described the lesions on the extremities as full-thickness perforations. He told Dr. Festa that it would have “been easy to discern, in their details, a written text or an object” through them. Dr. Romanelli couldn’t see through the lesions on the extremities because they were covered by thin membranes during his visit, but palpation gave him “the exact perception of a void” with respect to the lesions on both sides of each extremity. So, there is early, multiply attested, multimodal testimony that establishes that St. Pio’s lesions transfixed his hands and feet.

The initial depth of the lesions on the extremities absolutely excludes the hypotheses that they began as pathological products, chemical burns, or thermal injuries. That leaves the hypothesis that they began as mechanical injuries. However, it would not have been feasible for St. Pio to produce the lesions by driving a sharp object through his own hands and feet. Biomechanics, loss of motor control, nociceptive overload, and hemorrhagic burden would have thwarted any attempt. Moreover, during his first examination, Dr. Romanelli noted the absence of functional deficits that should have accompanied mechanical injuries as profound as the lesions he observed.

By the time that Dr. Bignami visited the convent, all of the lesions appeared to be superficial. They continued to appear that way during Dr. Festa’s first examination. However, Dr. Festa acknowledged that eschars made it “difficult to judge” the depth of the lesions. He concluded that the lesions on the hands “certainly” reached “the thickness of the subcutaneous tissue” because St. Pio was unable to clench his fists. During his joint examination with Dr. Romanelli, the absence of eschars allowed them to confirm the lesions on both sides of both feet were “true and proper continuous lesions, extending in depth, and produced as though by a pointed instrument.”

A year after Dr. Festa’s second examination, Bishop Rossi’s impression was that it was “obvious” that there was “absolutely no breaking or opening up of the tissues.” If St. Pio maintained the lesions for years before and after Bishop Rossi’s examination, why did he allow them to heal during the brief period that coincided with it? Moreover, if he was able to produce the lesions at will, why didn’t he revive them in anticipation of being examined? Bishop Rossi deposed witnesses at the convent, including St. Pio himself, for three days before he asked St. Pio to remove his gloves, socks, and shirt.

Four years after Bishop Rossi’s examination, Dr. Festa re-examined the lesions during surgery and confirmed that they possessed “the very same characteristics” that he had described in his previous reports. St. Pio tried to prevent him from doing so by refusing anesthesia, but he eventually lost consciousness due to extreme pain. After this incident, he never allowed Dr. Festa to be involved in his medical care again. So, whereas St. Pio did nothing to stop Bishop Rossi from discovering the absence of the lesions, he went to great lengths to stop Dr. Festa from verifying their presence.

In the final decade of St. Pio’s life, on separate occasions, Fr. Pellegrino and Fr. Eusebio noted that the lesion on the side was “very deep.” By contrast, throughout the early years, it was consistently described as “extremely superficial.” That is another example of an inverse correlation between the impressiveness of the lesions and the expectation of critical scrutiny. In the final year of St. Pio’s life, Fr. Alessio noted that the lesions on the hands were very deep. Later, he clarified that “one could see light through the wounds.” Fr. Pius Martin confirmed that “The wounds went all the way through the hands. If he held his hand in front of a window, you could see light.”

1.1.3 - Chronicity

Fr. Carmelo noted that “It was commonly reasoned that over the course of fifty years… a wound—especially one neither treated nor medicated—either heals or deteriorates. The stigmata, therefore, were in my time already a fact beyond dispute…” This echoed the opinions of all of the doctors that had examined the lesions decades earlier:

• (Romanelli) In private correspondence, Dr. Romanelli wrote:

Scientifically, wounds either heal if they are properly treated, or they give rise to complications if they are poorly treated. Now then, even scientifically, how can one explain the fact that the wounds of Padre Pio—treated without any scientific rule; subjected (especially those of the hands, in my presence) to washings with water that was anything but sterile; covered with ordinary wool gloves or with handkerchiefs taken straight from a shelf without any disinfection; washed even with soap of the poorest quality—do not worsen, do not suppurate, do not give rise to complications, and yet do not heal either?

• (Festa) In a monograph about the stigmata, Dr. Festa wrote:

But if, for a moment longer, one wanted to support the simulation thesis, one should not forget that these lesions, once and in whatever way they occurred, would then by natural necessity proceed towards healing, or towards that form of necrosis and decay which, due to the inevitable impact of some germ on them, would certainly not fail to occur. In Padre Pio, after nineteen years, neither of these outcomes occurred.

And even if our thoughts were to pause for a moment on the hypothesis that, to maintain them, he had occasionally reactivated the presumed chemically irritating, caustic, or destructive cause that had initially produced them, we would still have to conclude that, by repeating itself, this cause would have ended up exacerbating those lesions, and leading them at least toward that process of destruction which, as everyone knows, is the inevitable consequence of repeated caustic or irritating actions, when always exerted on the same point of the human body. This is what daily experience teaches.

Nor is it by chance that I said this, at least, since Clinical and Experimental Pathology, as has already been seen in the previous chapter, have reported a long series of neoplastic forms, a large number of true cancerous tumors with the sad cohort of symptoms that accompany them, in whose pathogenesis, as determining causes, predominate precisely the caustic or irritative actions repeatedly exercised on the points of the body where those neoplasms then developed.

• (Bignami) After his attempt to cure the lesions was unsuccessful, Dr. Bignami eventually conceded that their persistence was inexplicable:

Because of his hunch that the stigmata were kept open by being continually drenched in iodine, Bignami ordered that Padre Pio’s wounds be bandaged and sealed for eight days. This was in keeping with the standard procedure devised by Dr. Agostino Gemelli… Whenever Gemelli examined a stigmatic, he bandaged the wounds for several days. He maintained that in every single instance in his experience, the scabs came off with the removal of the bandage, and the epidermis had healed.

With the sanction of Padre Benedetto, the provincial, Bignami ordered that all iodine and carbolic acid, which Pio had been using to guard against infection and, apparently, in an attempt to heal the wounds, be removed from the friar’s room. Bignami bandaged and sealed the wounds in the presence of two eye-witnesses, Padre Paolino and Padre Placido. After eight days, there was no sign of healing…

When he learned what had happened, Bignami did not know what to make of Padre Pio’s wounds. Eventually he seems to have come around to the belief that they were true stigmata and a gift from the God in whom he heretofore had not believed. A decade later, when he was stricken with an incurable illness, he seemed pleased to learn that Padre Pio had sent him his blessing.

In fact, the lesions were not always suspended between healing and deterioration. Occasionally, they seemed as though they were going to disappear, but then came back “flourishing again.” If the lesions were repeatedly allowed to heal and then were re-inflicted, their stability was even more extraordinary than commonly assumed. Each cycle of healing would have irreversibly altered tissue in a way that would have made it impossible to replicate “the very same characteristics” the lesion had before. Additionally, each re-infliction would have amplified the risk of complications.

1.1.4 - Inflammation

Dr. Romanelli, Dr. Bignami, and Dr. Festa agreed that “the immediately surrounding skin shows neither edema, nor redness, nor infiltration, nor any other trace of inflammatory reaction.” Dr. Festa confirmed these observations with a “good magnifying lens.” Decades later, both Dr. Pancaro and Dr. Sala noted that was “no sign of localized inflammation” around the lesions on the hands. Inflammation is an obligatory immune response to tissue injury that persists until integrity is restored.

In ordinary wound physiology, the absence of perilesional inflammation presupposes either the reconstitution of anatomical continuity or systemic immunodeficiency, which itself produces unmistakable clinical sequelae. Moreover, if the lesions were artificially maintained by repeated re-injury—whether mechanical, chemical, or thermal—each new insult would have renewed and aggravated the release of molecular danger signals, progressively amplifying inflammation over time.

1.1.5 - Healing

In the final months of St. Pio’s life, the lesions on the hands began to close, culminating in their complete disappearance at death. Multiple witnesses, including Dr. Giuseppe Sala, as well as photographs confirm that they healed without “any trace of scarring.” That is physiologically incompatible with the depth of the lesions. Once a lesion extends beneath the epidermis into the dermis and subcutaneous tissue, scarring is unavoidable. Deep tissue injuries heal by fibrosis, not true regeneration.

Moreover, if the lesions were natural or artificial, it would be a remarkable coincidence that their terminal resolution—after five decades of persistence—was synchronized with St. Pio’s death. Fr. Pellegrino reported that “while Padre Pio was celebrating his final Mass, two scales… fell from his hands…. while Dr. Sala and I were preparing his lifeless body, the last scale fell from his left hand.” Fr. Carmelo reported that “precisely at the final moment the last small crust detached from the left hand.”

1.2 - Bleeding

An adequate theory of St. Pio’s stigmata has to explain continuous bleeding, intermittent hemorrhaging, and poor nutrition without anemia:3

• (Duration) All of the lesions continuously exuded blood for fifty years. That is confirmed by the testimony of many witnesses concerning direct observations of the flow of bloody exudate, the soaking of bandages and garments, and the renewal of eschars throughout that entire period. The only exception was “an interruption in the flow of blood” that began in August of 1954 and that lasted for several months. Doctors attributed the interruption to St. Pio’s “frequent use of antibiotics” to treat a “persistent bronchitis” throughout the summer.

• (Etiology) Dr. Festa pointed out “If the lesions he presents on his person have not healed in such a long time, they should give rise not to continuous and abundant hemorrhages like those still observed in him, but at most to secretions of a pathological nature. By what privilege of nature is there no trace of such secretions on his wounds, while instead a pure, fresh, shining, perfumed blood continues to ooze from them as in the first moment they appeared? Evidently, no hypothesis would be possible to arrive at a natural interpretation of the event.”

• (Intensity) While it is not possible to estimate the typical rate of blood loss with precision, the equivalent of 100 ml/day of whole blood is a conservative lower bound. The dimensions of the lesions, frequency of exudation, qualitative descriptions of abundant effusions, and saturation of fabrics are not consistent with trivial seepage. Moreover, peak losses would have been significantly greater. During the final decade of his life, when intensity was at its lowest, Fr. Pellegrino witnessed “half a liter of semi-clotted blood” pour into a jar all at once.

• (Nutrition) Whole blood contains approximately 0.5 mg/ml of iron. That implies that St. Pio would have lost about 50 mg of iron for every 100 ml of blood loss. If a person consumes an iron-rich diet, they can absorb up to 6 mg/day without supplements.4 St. Pio’s diet consisted of “a bit of vegetables.” He ate so little that Bishop Rossi posed the question “How can it be explained, so much work with so little nourishment?” St. Pio’s diet wouldn’t even have allowed him to absorb the 1 mg/day required to maintain iron balance without the loss of any blood.

• (Health) St. Pio never developed anemia. Hematological tests confirmed that St. Pio had “completely normal blood components.” Maintaining a significant iron deficit for decades without developing iron-deficiency anemia is not physiologically possible. The body stores about 1 gram of iron that it can use to buffer deficits. Once that reserve is depleted, iron-deficiency anemia is guaranteed unless iron balance is restored. In fact, it is not even physiologically possible to survive a deficit that exceeds 5 mg/day for more than a few months.

1.2.1 - Serosanguineous fluid?

It is worth noting that the bloody exudate that poured out of St. Pio’s lesions was not always pure whole blood. Sometimes the bloody exudate was diluted with other fluids. However, my conservative lower bound already takes that into account:

• First, a conservative lower bound for the average volume of fluid lost each day is hundreds of milliliters, not merely a hundred milliliters. During the period when there was a “significant decrease in the bloody exudate,” it was determined that a “cloth containing the leak that occurred on the day of the visit” had 12% as much hemoglobin as whole blood. It is clear that percentage is an extremely conservative upper bound for dilution, since the exudate was conspicuously less bloody than usual when the test was performed. Even if the exudate were that diluted for his entire life, blood loss would have been at least dozens of milliliters.

• Second, the exudate was usually pure blood. If blood is heavily diluted, it becomes pinkish and doesn’t form clots. Dr. Festa repeatedly described the exudate as “bright red,” “pure,” “fresh,” “shining,” and noted the presence of “small clots.” He confirmed his impressions by performing a “microscopic examination” of a “blood-soaked cloth.” He spoke of “continuous and abundant hemorrhages.” He declared that “blood loss, after such a long period of time, always remains continuous and significant.” Dr. Romanelli described the exudate as “red, physiological blood.” Dr. Sala confirmed that the exudate was “bright red blood.”

• Third, if the lesions were repeatedly allowed to heal and then were re-inflicted, that would have unavoidably caused substantial blood loss. Dr. Festa noted that “a wound, however inflicted on the human body, must initially be accompanied by a more or less copious and more or less persistent bleeding, depending on the size and abundance of blood vessels that were severed at the time it occurred.” On the other hand, if the lesions weren’t allowed to heal and then re-inflicted, in addition to forgoing that as an explanation for the evolution of the lesions, skeptics have to forgo it as an explanation for the long-term persistence of continuous bleeding.

1.2.2 - Iron supplementation?

Is it possible that St. Pio avoided iron-deficiency anemia by surreptitiously procuring and consuming iron supplements? No, multiple lines of reasoning preclude that:

• First, it would not have been feasible for St. Pio to sustain iron absorption in excess of 50 mg/day through oral routes. The human gut caps reliable daily uptake from oral iron at significantly less than that via hepcidin.5 Even if he somehow managed to absorb 50 mg/day for decades, that would only compensate for typical losses, so the iron deficits suffered during peak losses would have accumulated. Moreover, ingesting the doses of elemental iron that would have been required would have led to severe gastrointestinal problems that were not observed.

• Second, St. Pio would not have been able to maintain iron balance through oral supplementation without constant laboratory monitoring, since he wouldn’t have been able to accurately estimate the amount of iron that he was losing nor the amount he was absorbing. If replacement doses were too small, iron stores would have gradually depleted and iron-deficiency anemia would have developed. If replacement doses were too large, excess iron would have accumulated and iron overload would have developed, eventually culminating in multiple organ failure.

• Third, even if St. Pio maintained iron balance, losing more than a hundred milliliters of blood every day for decades should have led to complications besides iron-deficiency anemia, including circulatory, hematopoietic, and metabolic stress. Those would have manifested as severe and persistent fatigue, shortness of breath, hyperventilation, rapid and irregular heartbeat, a compromised immune system, and other symptoms that would have been obvious. They also wouldn’t have been missed by the doctors that carefully studied all of his organ systems.

1.3 - Fragrance

An adequate theory of St. Pio’s stigmata has to explain the pleasant fragrance that emanated from the lesions and the blood that exuded from them:6

• (Odor) Chronic lesions and blood inevitably develop a foul odor. St. Pio’s lesions and blood never became malodorous, even when no fragrance was present. However, “innumerable” testimonies confirm that “a fine, delicate scent” frequently emanated from the lesions and especially the blood that exuded from them. The scent was likened to a mixture of “violets, roses and lilies.” Dr. Romanelli “consulted several scientists, inquiring as to whether blood could, under any circumstances, have a sweet odor. They told him this was impossible.”

• (Strength) The fragrance that emanated from St. Pio’s lesions and blood demonstrated “an exceptionally strong power of penetration of smells and spaces.” Many witnesses reported that entire rooms were “inundated” with “strong perfume.” It was sometimes perceived at “a great distance from Padre Pio.” Fra. Modestino reported that it was “so intense that I was about to faint.” Fr. Clemente reported that it was “so intense that I was almost overcome.” Fr. Romolo reported that it was “so intense that it was impossible to be in his room.”

• (Intermittency) The fragrance was “sometimes sensed, sometimes not” and came “as if in waves.” This was not only true of his person, but also of his blood, bandages, garments, and other items that came into contact with him. It was sometimes perceived when St. Pio was mentioned but not present. For example, Dr. Amanzio Duodo reported that “he was talking with friends, one of whom was describing a visit to San Giovanni, when ‘suddenly and unexpected an intense perfume of violets enveloped us all. It lasted about half an hour…” Dr. Eduardo Bianco was also present and corroborated Duodo’s account of the event.

• (Persistence) Items that came into contact with St. Pio retained his characteristic scent for extremely long periods of time. Fr. Lodovico reported that “[St. Pio’s] handkerchief was for twenty days in my suitcase; after such a long time, it still had the scent in all its intensity. In the small drawer of the nightstand in my cell there was a bandage from St. Pio’s side. This small drawer has been in my cell for a year now, and every time I open it I notice Padre Pio’s scent.” Bishop Rossi reported that “the bandages with the blood that flowed out of Padre Pio’s wounds, his zucchetto, his gloves, his hair that was cut two years ago keep this scent…”

• (Selectivity) The fragrance was often perceived simultaneously by everyone in close proximity, but sometimes it was perceived by some but not others. For example, Bishop Rossi related that “It happened to Father Lorenzo, the superior, while the others with him didn’t sense it. It is to be noted that Father Lorenzo is a very serious priest, prudent, and at the beginning ‘skeptical’ about what was said of Padre Pio.” Fr. Lodovico testified “In his room, it is constant.” Meanwhile, Fr. Pietro testified “I didn’t smell it in his room, but in the vegetable garden, yes.” St. Pio claimed he never smelled the fragrance. Fra. Modestino related that St. Pio said “My son it is not me. It’s the Lord. He decides who smells it, and when.”

1.3.1 - Suggestion?

Suggestion can’t accommodate the uniform experience of massive numbers of independent witnesses that perceived the fragrance repeatedly and in diverse circumstances. Bernard Ruffin wrote “Without exception, those I interviewed who spent any time at all with Padre Pio experienced the aroma at some time or other.” Bishop Rossi wrote “This very intense and pleasant fragrance, similar to the scent of violet—as it was well described by the Bishop of Melfi—is attested by everyone. Most Eminent Fathers, let me attest it too.” Fr. Alberto D’Apolito wrote “The reality is that hundreds of thousands of individuals, even unbelievers, have testified and continue to testify that they suddenly and inexplicably perceived the perfume of Padre Pio…”

Nor can it accommodate the testimony of witnesses that were ignorant or skeptical of the phenomena when they first experienced it. I will limit myself to a small subset:

• (Dr. Romanelli) When Dr. Romanelli examined St. Pio for the first time, he smelled the fragrance but assumed that it was perfume. In fact, he remarked that “he thought it unsuitable for a friar to use perfume.” In a letter to Fr. Pietro he pointed out that “this was not suggestion on my part: first, because no one had ever spoken to me about such a phenomenon; and then because, if I had been influenced by suggestion, I would have noticed that odor constantly…”

• (Dr. Festa) Dr. Festa was entirely devoid of the sense of smell. He wrote:

During my first visit, I removed a blood-soaked cloth from his side, which I took with me for microscopic examination. Personally, for the reason mentioned, I did not detect any special emanation from it. However, a distinguished officer and other people who were in my car on the way back from San Giovanni, although unaware that I was carrying the cloth in a case, despite the intense wind caused by the movement of the vehicle, clearly detected its fragrance and assured me that it corresponded precisely to the perfume emanating from Padre Pio.

Once in Rome, in the following days and for a long period of time, the same diaper, kept in a piece of furniture in my study, perfumed the room so well that many of the people who came to consult me spontaneously asked where it came from.

• (Bishop Rossi) Bishop Rossi was skeptical until he smelled the fragrance:

And I can again assure the Most Eminent Fathers that I went to San Giovanni Rotondo with the resolute intention of conducting an absolutely objective inquiry, but also with a real personal unfavorable prejudice regarding what was said about Padre Pio. Today I am not an admirer of Padre Pio: certainly not, I feel complete indifference and I would say almost coldness, so much did I want to maintain a serene objectivity in writing my report. But, to clear my conscience, I have to say that faced with some of the facts, I could not retain my personal unfavorable prejudice, even though I did not manifest anything on the outside. And one of these facts is the fragrance, which, I’ll repeat, I have sensed, just like everyone else: The only one who does not notice it is Padre Pio. Where does it come from?

• (Fr. Agostino) Fr. Agostino was also skeptical until he smelled the fragrance:

Ever since the time of the stigmatization, innumerable visitors had, as we have seen, reported sensing this mysterious aroma, sometimes when they kissed the friars hand, sometimes when they were many miles away and felt he was trying to communicate with them. Agostino remained skeptical of the reports of it until September 1931 “I dont know how many times,” he wrote, “I have entered this room, spoken to him, and touched handkerchiefs that have been soaked with his blood without ever experiencing the aroma.” On this occasion he did, however. It was a scent that he could not define. “It was sweet, pleasant, delicate,” he wrote. He continued to smell the fragrance for at least a week thereafter.

• (Robert Hocke) Robert Hocke, a Lutheran seminarian, never met St. Pio and perceived the fragrance for the first time after St. Pio’s death:

Even after Padre Pio’s death, the aroma has continued to manifest itself. Robert H. Hopcke of North Plainfield, New Jersey, is a Lutheran seminarian who has never met Padre Pio. Hopcke was in Philadelphia in mid-September 1978, visiting his friend Vincent Mandato prior to leaving for a year’s study in Florence. Mandato was devoted to Padre Pio. On Sunday morning, the two young men went to Mass at a Catholic church near the University of Pennsylvania campus. In a letter to me dated June 30, 1980, Hopcke recounts:

“At Mass, just before the homily, I remember smelling very distinctly the odor of roses… I didn’t think much of it, and it seemed to go away only to come back again, just as sweet and just as strong, during the Creed. At that time, I recall looking around to see who the woman was nearby who had doused herself with so much scent, but there was no woman near us. I tried to locate a flower arrangement in the church that could be giving off such a perfume, but again, there was no arrangement nearby, and no roses in the church at all. I thought perhaps it could be the scented candles, but the strength of odor was such that the faraway candles would have had to fill the church with their scent, and surely I would have smelled such a powerful fragrance immediately upon entering the church and not halfway through the Mass. The odor seemed to fade again, and came back for the third and final time during the consecration of the Host. It faded again. I thought the experience a little odd but promptly put it out of my mind.

That is, until my friend Vince asked me after Mass ‘Did you smell something strange in church today?’ I said that I had and he told me to ask his father when I returned home… what the fragrance could have been… Intrigued by the whole affair, I hurried over to the Mandato’s house as soon as I arrived home.”

The senior Mandate had been very close to Padre Pio in his native Italy when he was young. Hopcke said nothing more than, “You know, today, while Vince and I were in church this morning, we both smelled something very strange in the air.”

“He finished the description for me. ‘It was very sweet and very strong, like the scent of roses, a garden of roses in decline, and it came and went a number of times, three or four times... ‘Why, yes!’ I answered, surprised at the accuracy. ‘And it came right before the homily, during the Creed, and during the consecration of the Host.’

Mrs. Mandato jumped off her chair and kissed me… ‘The spirit of Padre Pio was with you and Vincent today in church. His spirit is often accompanied by just that scent of roses. Surely Vincent was invoking his protection for you for the coming year in Italy and the scent of roses was his assurance that he will be with you.’”

Hopcke concludes:

“Not having known Padre Pio personally, as have the Mandatos, and having, I like to think, a very rational, logical mind, I neither totally believe nor disbelieve the stories of Padre Pio. The sheer volume of them tends to make me believe that something indeed miraculous took place in the presence of this obviously holy, devout Capuchin. However, the farfetched character of many of these tales reactivates the sceptic within me. Nevertheless, I cannot deny what I smelled that day in church… And I cannot deny that before I even spoke of what I had smelled, Mr. Mandato had described it perfectly…”

1.3.2 - Artificial?

Nor is it remotely possible that the fragrance was artificial perfume:

• First, St. Pio had neither the means nor the opportunity to procure and conceal massive amounts of floral perfume to simulate the odor of sanctity. How did a Capuchin friar acquire hundreds of liters of unique, high-quality, exceptionally long-lasting perfume? How did he repeatedly smuggle perfume into a cloistered environment and store it without ever getting caught? Who were his accomplices and why were they complicit? How did he mask the malodor of his lesions and blood when no pleasant fragrance was detected in their vicinity?

• Second, artificial perfume would have been perceived continuously, not intermittently. However, the fragrance often began and ceased while St. Pio was being observed by large crowds. Bishop Rossi pointed out that “If he really, for whatever reason, used the fragrance on himself, the scent should be sensed more or less at all times.” Fr. Lorenzo testified that “What makes me suspect that it is something uncommon is that it is sometimes sensed, sometimes not; and it comes as if in waves: I sit next to Padre Pio in the choir, so I sense it well.”

• Third, the blood that exuded from St. Pio’s lesions was “scented.” On many occasions, the fragrance was perceived immediately when freshly soaked cloths, bandages, or garments were removed. In such circumstances, St. Pio would not have had any time to covertly apply perfume to the blood. Even if he somehow had applied perfume to the bloody exudate and blood-soaked objects, the fragrance would not have behaved as witnesses described. Perfume applied to fresh blood would have deteriorated very quickly, yet the fragrance persisted for durations that would be extraordinary for perfume applied to any medium.

• Fourth, artificial perfume can’t accommodate selectivity, nor can it accommodate perception of the fragrance in association with St. Pio while he was “hundreds of miles away” or dead. Several examples of this have already been mentioned, but here are a couple more: Maria Galiano was about to die from uterine cancer. After her daughter sent a telegram to St. Pio, she “smelled an intense perfume” and was completely healed. William Carrigan, who was “normally quite sceptical of miracle stories,” reported that he “perceived the aroma while writing at his desk at Foggia” and that he “had no trouble identifying it as the odor of Padre Pio.”

2. Fevers

St. Pio suffered from bouts of extreme hyperthermia that he attributed to “a moral, rather than physical, illness.” On one occasion, his body temperature reached 52°C (125.6°F), the highest value ever recorded. On another occasion, his body temperature reached 50°C (122°F), the second highest value ever recorded. On several occasions, his body temperature reached 48°C (118.4°F), the third highest value ever recorded. On many occasions, his body temperature reached 47°C (116.6°F), 46°C (114.8°F), and 45°C (113°F). During these fevers, St. Pio could “get up,” “move about,” and “do everything.” They always subsided without aggressive medical interventions.7

2.1 - Myth?

Independent, convergent testimony from priests and doctors confirms repeated measurements of St. Pio’s extraordinary and unprecedented body temperatures.

2.1.1 - Fr. Paolino

In a memoir, Fr. Paolino of Casacalenda reported that, while he was the guardian of St. Pio’s convent, he measured an axillary temperature of 52°C:8

On January 17, 1917, Padre Pio took to bed sick. My first thought, before calling the doctor, was to take his temperature. But what was my surprise when, upon taking the thermometer out, the mercury, which had reached 42.5 degrees, the highest point of a common thermometer, had built up pressure, not yet being able to rise, and had broken the container in which it was contained. I still keep this special thermometer, which I have never wanted to give to anyone, and this is the most authentic proof of what I say. The mercury is still at the top of the column, just as it was returned to me by the Padre after he had measured the degree of the fever…

Meanwhile, curious to know what degree the Father’s fever was, I took a bath thermometer that I had in my room, and after freeing it from the wooden case, I went to the sick man’s bed to measure his temperature again. My amazement increased tremendously when I saw in the column that the mercury had reached 52 degrees. Fifty-two! I immediately looked at the sick man with great concern…

Both the broken thermometer and the bath thermometer that Fr. Paolino referenced are currently stored in in the Padre Pio archives in San Giovanni Rotondo:9

2.1.2 - Dr. Merla, Dr. Giuva, and Dr. Fabrocino

In interviews with a Belgian newspaper, Dr. Angelo Merla and Dr. Francescantonio Giuva reported that they measured axillary temperatures of 50°C and 48°C:10

On October 27th of the same year, 1923, the readers of the Belgian newspaper Le Soir discover the existence of a friar who has “very high fevers - 48 and 50°C - which lasted for four or five days and that made the thermometers jump before the eyes of the astonished doctors.” The author of this long article, Italian correspondent Nino Salvaneschi, did not write based on hearsay, but only after having gone personally to San Giovanni Rotando, and he certifies “Doctors Merla and Giuva, whom I have questioned in detail, were the first to visit Padre Pio. Both possessed bath thermometers that stopped at 48 and 50 degrees Celsius.”

In an interview with an Italian newspaper correspondent, Professor Adelchi Fabrocino confirmed that he measured an axillary temperature of 48°C:11

Professor Adelchi Fabrocino, using a bath thermometer, found that the temperature had reached 48°C, and P. Pio, meanwhile, showed no signs of alarm.

2.1.3 - Fr. Lorenzo and Fr. Ignazio

In a sworn deposition, Fr. Lorenzo of San Marco reported that, while he was the guardian of St. Pio’s convent, he measured axillary temperatures of 48°C and 45°C:12

Before I came, there was much talk about him: that he ran fevers of over 118°F; that he had received the stigmata; that he could read people’s hearts. To tell the truth, I didn’t put much trust in these tales, so much that, being a military chaplain and having obtained a leave to go back to my hometown, I refused to come… It was also said, as I have already stated, that he had such high fevers, but even as a superior I was skeptical. Once when Padre Pio had a fever, I wanted to use a thermometer: Padre Pio advised me not to, for it would break. I yielded, but a second time I absolutely wanted to try and the thermometer went up to 109.6°F—that is, up to the last mark—but it didn’t break. A third time, a thermometer that would read up to 113°F was used, and the mercury went up to 113°F; but it did not break. There were Dr. D. Franc., Antonio Gina, and Dr. Angelo M. Merla, the house doctor, a socialist. Another time I myself wanted to measure the temperature with a thermometer brought by Dr. Festa of Rome, one that would read up to 302°F, and it went up to 118.4°F. So, I too, believed in what was said.

Fr. Ignazio of Jelsi corroborated Fr. Lorenzo’s testimony: “A 48°C fever was observed, but he is not knocked down: He gets up, moves about, and can do everything.”13

2.1.4 - St. Pio

In sworn depositions, St. Pio confirmed that he experienced 48°C fevers:14

[Deposition of Padre Pio by Bishop Raffaello Rossi on June 15th, 1921]

Question: What does [Fr. Pio] have to say about his temperature sometimes rising to 48°C?

Answer: It’s true—it happens sometimes when I am ill.

Question: What kind of illness does he mean?

Answer: I believe it is a moral, rather than a physical, illness.

Question: What effects does he experience? What does he feel?

Answer: Internal feelings, the contemplation, or some representation, of the Lord. Like in a furnace, still always conscious.

[Deposition of Padre Pio by Bishop Raffaello Rossi on June 16th, 1921]

Question: When did the raising of the temperature up to 48°C start?

Answer: It’s been several years.

Question: What did the doctors have to say? What did they say while you were enlisted?

Answer: They were amazed, that’s all. When I was enlisted, I also had very high temperatures, but I always tried to hide it: One time, luckily, the nurse attributed it to a faulty thermometer.

2.1.5 - Dr. Festa

In a monograph, Dr. Giorgio Festa “verified with complete certainty” that there had been numerous measurements of axillary temperatures as high as 48.5°C:15

Having completed the strictly necessary study to form a precise idea of the anatomical and physiological conditions of his organs, and having established that their functions—especially those regarding the nervous system—operate in a fairly regular manner, it is fitting to focus more particularly on that set of phenomena observed in him which, objectively speaking, escape the control of any natural or scientific law. These are: the remarkable hyperthermias that he allowed us to verify over a long period…

Called into military service during the war and assigned as part of the medical staff to a ward in the main Trinity Hospital in Naples, it was quickly understood that, given the poor state of health he appeared to be in, it would be more useful to study him carefully than to use his labor in caring for the sick, in order to restore him, as much as possible, to a normal physical condition.

An attempt was therefore made to begin a clinical study on him by methodically measuring his temperatures; but this had to be abandoned quickly because whenever a thermometer was applied to him, the mercury column would rise with such rapidity and force in the glass tube that it immediately burst. After repeating the attempt several times with the same result, the matter was dropped and arrangements were made for his permanent discharge.

After being received, following his military discharge, into the convent of Foggia, and as the superiors thought he continued to appear always unwell, attempts were also made there to measure his temperature, with identical results to those observed at the hospital in Naples. Examined then by a physician of that city using a bath thermometer, it registered within a few moments a temperature of 48°C.

I later learned that the phenomenon had been repeated many times in the convent of San Giovanni Rotondo; and so, in order to evaluate it with scientific accuracy, on my second visit I thought it appropriate to bring a thermometer of absolute precision, in which even the most notable hyperpyrexias could be exactly recorded.

During my stay with him, the temperatures of his person, measured methodically for several days with this thermometer, always appeared normal, with fluctuations ranging from a morning minimum of 36.2°C to an evening maximum of 36.5°C. However, having entrusted the Superior with the task of checking his temperatures himself with the thermometer I left behind, whenever Father Pio’s condition appeared feverish, it became possible, on numerous further occasions, to observe in him maximum temperatures of 48°C and 48.5°C.

In general, when he was taken by such elevated temperatures, he appeared very afflicted, somewhat agitated in his bed, but without delirium and without the usual disturbances that ordinarily accompany marked febrile alterations. After one or two days everything returned to his normal state, and on the third day he was again seen in the confessional fulfilling his ministry. For some time the phenomenon has not occurred again…

As far as Father Pio is concerned, it must be noted that, aside from excluding the existence of even the slightest neurotic or psychopathic disposition of any sort, the hyperthermias repeatedly observed in him and verified with complete certainty greatly exceed the limits set by the most authoritative experts, and—far from being considered signs of death—they have never been accompanied by any secondary organ damage of any gravity. Indeed, on the third day after a violent crisis, he always returned serene and tranquil to the sacred duties of his ministry.

2.1.6 - Fr. D’Apolito

In a memoir, Fr. Alberto D’Apolito reported that, while he was working with St. Pio at a boarding school, he routinely measured axillary temperatures of 47°C and 46°C:16

In the Seraphic Boarding School of San Giovanni Rotondo I had the good fortune and joy to see, to meet and to approach Padre Pio many times a day, to render him some service and to kiss his hand. When the dear Padre was mysteriously ill and bedridden, I would often have a chance to assist him, to clean his cell and to keep him company. Many times, together with my companions and the Disciplinary Director, I would take his temperature and it would register a high fever of forty-six or forty-seven degrees Centigrade (114.8°-116.6° Fahrenheit).

2.1.7 - Fr. Ezechia and Dr. Avenia

In a sworn deposition, Fr. Ezechia Cardone reported that, when he attempted to measure St. Pio’s axillary temperature, the themormeter broke due to excessive heat:17

Father Ezechia Cardone testifies that on the last Sunday in August 1945, Padre Pio was in bed with a fever. His superior ordered him to take his temperature, and Dr. Avenia gave him the thermometer. After a few seconds, it broke due to the excessive heat. The doctor confirmed that it had broken due to the internal pressure of the mercury, since Padre Pio had not made any unusual movements.

In 1967, Dr. Giuseppe Avenia donated the broken thermometer to the convent:18

I include the thermometer that broke when I visited Padre Pio who had suddenly fallen ill. Father Guardian Damasus and Father Ezechia of Pietrelcina were present. For many years I jealously preserved the thermometer, like a relic. I’m sorry to have to separate from the thermometer, but I realize the need for it to be collected and kept in the convent.

It is currently stored in in the Padre Pio archives in San Giovanni Rotondo:19

2.2 - Natural?

The Guinness World Record for highest body temperature is credited to a heat stroke victim that survived a 46.5°C (115.7°F) fever. EMTs found Willie Jones in a “deep coma.” When Jones arrived at the hospital, “he was wrapped in wet sheeting which was kept cool by continually replacing bags of ice… and an ice water lavage was begun to supplement cooling.” It took “approximately two hours of therapy” for his temperature to return to a safe level. In subsequent weeks, he received “aggressive care” for sequelae like “multiple organ system failure,” “generalized seizures,” and “profound ataxia.” His doctors were astonished that he eventually recovered.20

Contrast that with the case of St. Pio. He did not have the benefit of intensive cooling. He retained consciousness. He was ambulatory. He was never treated for sequelae.

• (Etiology) Jones’ temperature reached an extreme value because he spent all day cooking over a hot stove in a poorly ventilated apartment during a heat wave. St. Pio’s body temperature reached extreme values in normal environments. It is not possible to reach temperatures in excess of 47°C through endogenous heat production under ordinary conditions. When temperature reaches 45°C, the organelles that generate heat deteriorate while heat loss continues to accelerate.21 Further, approaching that ceiling would presuppose a metabolic storm so intense that it would trigger cardiopulmonary collapse within minutes.

• (Duration) Jones’ temperature was measured after 25 minutes of intensive cooling, so his maximum temperature would have been considerably higher than the recorded value. His cooling trajectory suggests a cumulative thermal dose on the order of 10³ CEM43-VTF, a regime in which catastrophic damage to vital organs is guaranteed. St. Pio remained near his maximum temperatures for days. That implies cumulative thermal doses on the order of 10⁵ CEM43-VTF, a regime in which total ablation of vital organs is guaranteed.22 Surviving a dose of 10³ CEM43-VTF is improbable. Surviving a dose of 10⁵ CEM43-VTF is inexplicable.

• (Lucidity) Jones went into a coma. St. Pio wasn’t even delirious. Consciousness is one of the most thermolabile processes in the entire body since it depends on the precise synchronization of electrochemical signals and a continuous supply of large amounts of energy. Even at body temperatures as low as 40.5°C, disturbances are inevitable. When temperature rises above 42°C, the electrical activity of the brain collapses. When temperature rises above 44°C, the electrical activity of the brain disappears entirely.23 Lucid consciousness at body temperatures in excess of 45°C is beyond the envelope of natural physiology.

• (Sequelae) Despite aggressive care, Jones developed shock, coagulopathy, hemorrhage, respiratory failure, renal dysfunction, hepatic dysfunction, rhabdomyolysis, seizures, and ataxia. St. Pio’s exposures were significantly greater, his medical care was negligible, yet he recovered quickly and without complications. That is fundamentally incompatible with thermodynamic constraints on proteins, membranes, and cells. At extreme temperatures, biomolecules undergo irreversible transitions.24 The inevitable consequence is pervasive structural collapse that the human body can’t overcome on its own.

2.3 - Hoax?

If St. Pio’s extraordinary fevers were fraudulent then, unless there were a series of baffling conspiracies that implicated many and various clergymen and physicians over a span of decades, he would have had to repeatedly and reliably manipulate axillary temperature readings while under close supervision in diverse circumstances.

• (Instrument tampering) St. Pio did not have the opportunity to tamper with the instruments that were used to take his temperature. On many occasions, several thermometers were used in series, precisely because earlier instruments reached their maximum scale or cracked, and were supplied ad hoc by physicians or superiors. Moreover, tampering is not a plausible explanation for the observed behavior of the instruments. No feasible modifications to sealed thermometers would have caused the mercury inside to remain quiescent until axillary contact and then expand beyond the limits implied by the temperature of the bulb.

• (Artificial heating) Nor is it plausible that extraordinary temperatures were simulated by artificially heating the axillae. To keep the skin–bulb interface near 48°C for an extended period without continuous heating, St. Pio would have had to heat a substantial depth of tissue so that it functioned as a thermal reservoir. But heating deeply to that level would have caused severe burns that would have been conspicuous, excruciating and long-lasting. The only alternative—concealing a heat source near the skin–bulb interface during measurements—is likewise untenable. Any heat source powerful enough to sustain 48°C readings would have been impossible to hide and caused noticeable erythema.

3. Healings

Thousands of miraculous healings have been attributed to St. Pio, both throughout his life and after his death. It would be impossible to discuss all of them, so I will limit myself to just three. While I believe that each of the cases that I discuss in this section can stand on its own, it is important to remember the broader context when assessing the plausibility of skeptical explanations. Multiplying ‘one-in-a-million’ coincidences is not a sustainable approach to dealing with this body of evidence.

3.1 - Giovanni Savino

Giovanni Savino’s right eye was regenerated through the intercession of St. Pio:25

• (Condition) On February 15th, 1949, Giovanni Savino, a construction worker, was involved in a workplace accident at the convent. He placed a charge of dynamite that failed to go off for several minutes, so he went over to examine it. It detonated. Fr. Raffaele, Dr. Sanguinetti, and Fr. Meyer were at his side within minutes. All three noted that Savino’s face was horribly disfigured and that his right eye was gone entirely. He was rushed to a nearby hospital. The doctors confirmed that his “right eye had been completely annihilated and the left one was so damaged that there was little likelihood of his ever seeing out it again.”

• (Cure) On February 25th, Savino’s face was unbandaged for the first time since he was admitted to the hospital. Doctors were shocked to discover “his shattered face was completely healed and covered with new skin.” They were even more shocked to discover that “Savino had a right eye as well as a left eye.” For the rest of his life, “Savino was blind in his left eye, the one that had been damaged but not lost in the explosion. He maintained good vision, however, in the right eye, which had apparently materialized after its predecessor had been emulsified!” All of the doctors acquainted with the facts of the case agreed it was inexplicable.

• (Context) On the morning of February 12th, St. Pio predicted that Savino was going to be the victim of a near-fatal accident by exclaiming “Courage! I’ll pray to the Lord that it does not cause your death.” On February 18th, while Savino was recovering in the hospital, he mentally spoke to St. Pio and then smelled his characteristic scent. He told a surgeon that that St. Pio had just paid him visit. On February 25th, he felt someone slap him on the right side of his face and then smelled St. Pio’s characteristic scent. Later that day, when an atheist ophthalmologist realized Savino’s eye had regenerated, he immediately converted.

3.1.1 - Myth?

Fr. Joseph Pius Martin was not credulous about miracles attributed to St. Pio. For example, after looking into the restoration of the sight of Gemma Golgani, one of the most famous miracles attributed to St. Pio, he arrived at the conclusion that the case was naturalistically explicable. When Fr. Joseph Pius was asked “which miracle attributed to Padre Pio was most striking,” he “researched the question extensively in 1981” and determined that “It has to be that pertaining to John Savino.” It is historically certain that Savino’s eye was completely destroyed and then reconstituted.

Savino had passed away by the time that Fr. Joseph Pius set out to research the question, but his account of the event had been taken down by Fr. John Schug in 1974. Additionally, “his widow, various members of his family, and a number of people who examined him after the accident” were still alive. “After conducting numerous interviews” and reviewing contemporaneous documents, he confirmed that “Savino’s right eye had been totally macerated” and that “every doctor connected with the case was positive that there was no way, according to even the most liberal interpretation of the laws of nature, that an eye so completely destroyed could regenerate itself.”

Fr. Dominic Meyer, who was himself an eyewitness to the maceration of Savino’s eye, wrote a circular letter that described the miracle within a month of Savino’s hospitalization. Fr. Raffaele is reported to have said “The right eye is gone entirely. The socket is simply empty” in the aftermath the explosion. Dr. Sanguinetti is reported to have told Savino’s wife “Your husband’s eyes are both destroyed.” Medical records from the Ospedali Riuniti confirm that Savino’s left eye had “numerous foreign bodies in the cornea” and that his right eye was “blown out.” The Italian word that was used was “emoptalmo” which literally translates to “completely torn out.”

3.2 - Consiglia De Martino

The miracle for the beatification of St. Pio was the healing of Consiglia De Martino:26

• (Condition) On November 1st, 1995, Consiglia De Martino discovered “a lump under the left clavicle ‘in the form of a large grapefruit.’” At about 1:00 PM, she arrived at the hospital and “a CT scan without contrast was immediately performed.” Then “another CT scan, this time with contrast, was performed at 6:30 PM.” Doctors concluded that “The thoracic duct in her neck had ruptured. A huge lump containing about half a gallon of lymphatic fluid had formed.” On November 2nd, De Martino was told she needed “a difficult and complicated surgical intervention as soon as possible.” It was scheduled for November 3rd.

• (Cure) On November 3rd, during a check-up before surgery, the doctors were “amazed that there was no more lump. The lymphatic fluid had all been absorbed.” Soon, a chest X-ray and a total body CT scan were performed. “Everything was normal.” De Martino was released from the hospital on November 6th, “without ever having surgery or medication.” A diocesan investigation spent about a year collecting testimony and medical records. In September of 1997, the diocesan tribunal accepted the inexplicability of the cure. The documentation that they had collected was then sent to a panel of medical experts that unanimously agreed that the cure was “extraordinary and scientifically inexplicable.”

• (Context) From the beginning of her hospitalization until her cure, De Martino and her family incessantly prayed for the intercession of St. Pio. They called Fra. Modestino and asked him to pray to St. Pio on her behalf. On November 2nd, when she learned surgery was necessary, she asked St. Pio to be her surgeon. Fra. Modestino told her husband “Tell Lina not to have the fluid syringed, because there is no need: Padre Pio is close to her.” Later that day, De Martino “felt the presence of someone” who “made a cut at the level of the clavicle, then stitched it up with sutures.” She reported that “this was accompanied by a clear sensation of sweetness filling my soul while the swelling began to disappear.”

3.2.1 - Misdiagnosis?

De Martino complained of the sudden onset of a “shooting pain” in the chest “like a tear” during strenuous lifting. Within days, she discovered “a large swelling, the size of an orange” on her left clavicle. That indicates that her condition was caused by acute mechanical stress. Both her pain and swelling were located in the left supraclavicular area which coincides with the terminal course of the thoracic duct.

Soon after De Martino arrived at the hospital, it was determined that the swelling was “mobile, soft, and fluctuant” and did not “adhere to the underlying planes” upon palpation. It was also “non-inflammatory in nature and covered with normal skin.” CT scans confirmed “the presence of the fluid collection in the lateral-cervical, left supra- and sub-clavicular, mediastinal, retro-crural and median retroperitoneal areas.” That distribution closely matches the anatomical trajectory of the thoracic duct.

The Division Chief “reviewed the CT scans performed, examined Mrs. De Martino, and and diagnosed ‘a rupture or laceration of the thoracic duct following trauma with a massive effusion of lymphatic fluid, estimated at approximately two liters.’” That diagnosis was confirmed by all of the medical experts that reviewed the case in the following years. For instance, Dr. Peter Violi concluded that the evidence for “a chylothorax with spreading in the retroperitoneum” was unequivocal.

3.2.2 - Natural?

It is extremely unlikely that De Martino’s recovery was natural:

• First, Dr. Violi pointed out that “the treatment practiced and reported in the literature is surgical; in fact, resolution always occurs after ligation of the duct…” and that “in this case, not only was there no increase in effusion in the cavities where there was lymph, but on the contrary such a rapid disappearance…” Various experts agreed with Dr. Violi’s assessment that “the almost immediate, complete, and spontaneous disappearance of a large quantity of liquid, estimated at around two liters, which, due to its composition and high substance content, is certainly not susceptible to spontaneous reabsorption” was “inexplicable.”

• Second, if the recovery were natural, it would have to be an extraordinary coincidence that an unprecedented, mechanistically implausible healing coincided with a confident prediction of a miracle by a close associate of St. Pio as well as multimodal hallucinations in an individual that was not otherwise prone to hallucinate. Fra. Modestino was so certain that St. Pio would intervene that he advised De Martino not to receive surgery on account of his confidence. Moreover, if the olfactory, haptic, and auditory experiences that De Martino reported were hallucinations, they were uncommon hallucinations.

3.3 - Matteo Pio Colella

The miracle for the canonization of St. Pio was the healing of Matteo Pio Colella:27

• (Condition) On January 20th, 2000, Matteo Pio Colella was admitted into the Home for the Relief of Suffering with fulminant meningitis. Within hours of admission, his condition deteriorated into septic shock with disseminated intravascular coagulation and rapidly progressive multi-organ failure. He was transferred to intensive care, intubated, and placed on mechanical ventilation. The infection progressed to the point that “nine organs were affected, becoming insufficient.” Matteo’s doctors “did not believe a positive resolution was possible” and suggested that “continuing the resuscitation attempts would be a bad thing.”

• (Cure) Late in the evening of January 21st, “suddenly, something extraordinary happened and with everyone’s disbelief.” Matteo’s condition stabilized and then began to improve. All of his symptoms followed “a rapid resolution trend.” However, it was not possible to assess Matteo for brain damage, since he was in a pharmacological coma. After ten days, the coma was suspended and “the child woke up as if he had nothing and, in fact, asked to enjoy a Coca-Cola popsicle and to have a PlayStation, which was brought to him and with which he started playing.” The doctors involved in the case, as well as more than ten experts that were consulted about it, unanimously agreed Colella’s recovery was “inexplicable.”

• (Context) The Home for the Relief of Suffering was founded by St. Pio. Colella’s mother, Maria Lucia, had a devotion to St. Pio and incessantly prayed for his intercession throughout the entire course of her son’s condition. While praying on top of St. Pio’s tomb, she had a vision of St. Pio lifting up her son’s lifeless body and placing him on his feet. When Matteo woke up, he reported that he had an out-of-body experience. During the experience, he saw “an old man with a white beard and a long brown dress” who gave him “his right hand and said: ‘Matteo, don't worry, you'll get better soon.’” When Maria Lucia showed him an image of St. Pio, he exclaimed “It’s him mom, it’s him, it was Padre Pio…”

3.3.1 - Natural?

It is extremely unlikely that Colella’s recovery was natural:

• First, Matteo’s prognosis was so bleak that “the survival of any patient has never been described as mortality is 100%.” He endured the simultaneous insufficiency of nine organs, including respiratory failure so profound that oxygen saturation fell to 18%, cardiovascular failure so profound that arterial pressure was not measurable despite vasopressors, and coagulopathy so profound that his entire body was covered with petechiae. Professor Francesco Di Raimondo, one of the medical experts that reviewed the case, concluded that Matteo’s condition was so severe that “the phenomena indicative of death had already been detected.”

• Second, “generalized cyanosis, bilaterally fixed mydriasis, and extreme bradycardia persisted for at least thirty minutes or more” which should have at least caused pervasive and permanent neurological damage. Instead, Matteo’s recovery was “complete and long-lasting, without after-effects.” In fact, the recovery was so complete that the only residual effects were the “tiny scars,” which were far smaller than they should have been given the extent of the damage to the Matteo’s skin during his illness. Dr. Violi characterized the attitudes of medical experts towards this outcome as follows “We remain more and more perplexed, surprised, dare I say, incredulous at this extraordinary healing.”

• Third, survivors of multiple organ failure syndrome with involvement of as few as three organs always “have a very, very slow recovery.” Within days of Matteo’s coma being suspended, he was “alert and conscious,” had “no motor deficits,” “urinated spontaneously, without a bladder catheter,” and even started “making fun of” hospital staff and “challenging” them to play video games with him. So, not only did Matteo completely recover from a condition that was far more severe than the most severe that any other patient has ever recovered from, he did so almost instantaneously, whereas patients with far less severe conditions require months of convalescence to achieve far less dramatic improvements.

4. Sanctity

St. Pio demonstrated heroic virtue throughout his life:28

• (Vocation) St. Pio entered the Capuchin order as a teenager and remained a Capuchin friar until his death. He strictly adhered to Capuchin ascetic practices. He set his alarm for 2:30 in the morning. He ate very little. He incessantly prayed. He always had a rosary in his hands. His Masses would go on for three hours. He spent 10–15 hours listening to confessions every day for decades. He kept listening to confessions even when he was physically ill or exhausted.

• (Demeanor) Renzo Allegri, one of St. Pio’s biographers, remarked that “an extraordinary moral strength emanated from his whole being.” Bishop Anseimo Kenealy, who was “a severe… rather distrustful man,” was overcome with admiration for the “great superiority of his spirit” after conversing with him for a few hours. Bishop Angelo Polli wrote “I came. I saw. I am conquered… his demeanor—always the same and composed—inspires complete confidence.”

• (Long-suffering) Despite the fact that St. Pio’s endured “incredibly enormous suffering,” he “bore it without complaining.” He was chronically ill, bombarded with the moral crises and personal tragedies of penitents, and had to deal with “more persecution, humiliation, accusations, slanders, trials, and condemnations than one can imagine.” Nonetheless, “in the midst of the most difficult trials, he always looked to the future with a spirit of optimism, faith, and love.”

• (Humility) St. Pio was reticent to discuss his spiritual charisms with anyone. On the rare occasions that he did, he downplayed them. He went to great lengths to conceal the stigmata whenever he could. Bishop Rossi wrote “I was able to observe his deeply felt and profound humility, so that—as is universally attested—he lives in the utmost simplicity and indifference, as if nothing had ever occurred around his person, and he wasn’t still the object of so much attention…”

• (Obedience) When St. Pio was unjustly persecuted by the Holy Office, he neither publicly protested nor encouraged his supporters to do so. Instead, he quietly submitted to disciplinary measures that completely isolated him from the world and destroyed his reputation. In fact, he discouraged supporters from advocating for him in a way that might harm the Church’s reputation. For example, he dissuaded Emmanuele Brunatto from pleading his case to the United Nations.

• (Mercy) Dr. Francesco Riccardi defamed and ridiculed St. Pio for years. St. Pio, for his part, “never uttered a word of blame against the cruel man…” When Dr. Riccardi came down with a serious illness, he had a pang of conscience and declared “Only Padre Pio, whom I have so offended, can hear my confession today.” Upon learning of this, St. Pio traveled to him, embraced him, and then heard his confession. This was perhaps the only time St. Pio left the convent.

• (Wisdom) St. Pio offered spiritual guidance to thousands of people. “People would go to him not only for confession but with every kind of question you could imagine... He never said ‘Let me think about it.’ He had the answer bing, bing, bing, bing.” And yet his advice was often remarkably insightful and effective. Dr. Festa was struck by the “gentle, serene, and persuasive eloquence of his words.’ Fr. Nello Castello recalled that “Padre Pio knew my problems better than I did.”

4.1 - Liar?

If the prodigious phenomena attributed to St. Pio were fraudulent, then he was a pathological liar that habitually planned, executed, and covered up bizarre and elaborate conspiracies that often required self-harm. But that’s wildly implausible:

• First, given the level of scrutiny to which St. Pio was subjected, it is almost certain that his penchant for mendacity would have been exposed if it existed. There were times when he was placed “under strict surveillance.” His room was searched. Listening devices were hidden in his room and his confessional. He was interrogated repeatedly by many and various interrogators. Everyone that lived with him was questioned about every facet of his character and behavior. His private correspondence, including with spiritual directors and confessors, was often intercepted or confiscated by hostile ecclesiastical authorities.

• Second, it is absolutely ridiculous to suppose that St. Pio was consistent, committed, and competent enough to pull off a series of mind-boggling conspiracies over a span of decades while giving everyone that knew him “certainty of a simplicity and sincerity that was incapable of deceiving or of saying a ‘yes’ for a ‘no.’” Not to mention that extraordinary consistency, commitment, and competence are exactly the opposite of what you would expect from a psychologically disturbed self-harmer. There is no precedent for the behavioral profile that proponents of this theory are committed to.

• Third, if St. Pio wanted to simulate sanctity, he could have achieved his desired effect in ways that were far less complex, risky, demanding, and painful than the conspiracies that would be necessary to explain the prodigious phenomena attributed to him. There are plenty of examples of simulated sanctity throughout history, but none of them are remotely comparable to the case at hand. Furthermore, if he was principally motivated by his reputation, then it is incomprehensible that he resigned himself to spending his life in total isolation with his reputation in tatters and opposed efforts to rehabilitate his image.

• Fourth, St. Pio was aware of the Church’s teaching about the spiritual danger of lying and exhorted penitents to refrain from telling even small lies. During World War II, he told a penitent that confessed to telling a lie to achieve good, “If I could end this war with a single lie, I would not tell it.” If he was a true believer, then he knew that engaging in a massive and sustained deception about spiritual charisms was almost certainly going to send him to Hell unless he publicly repented of it. But then it is baffling that he never publicly repented. If he was not a true believer, then almost everything else he did is completely mystifying.

4.2 - Lunatic?

Nor is it remotely possible that St. Pio was honest but deluded:

• First, for this theory to accommodate the combination of St. Pio’s testimony and even a modicum of the prodigious phenomena attributed to him, he would need to have repeatedly and reliably entered into altered states of consciousness, performed whichever coordinated, skillful behaviors were necessary to keep up appearances, and then returned to his ordinary state without any awareness of what he had just done. In other words, the theory has to invoke an unprecedented, mechanistically implausible, and finely-tuned psychological disorder.

• Second, the above-mentioned psychological disorder would need to have completely evaded detection despite intense scrutiny, only manifesting in ways that were inconspicuous and didn’t leave behind traces. Moreover, the disorder would need to have occurred in an individual that otherwise appeared to possess “an almost stubborn interior stability.” After careful study, Dr. Festa determined that St. Pio exemplified “the most complete balance and a truly perfect harmony between the functions of his nervous system and the faculties of his mind.”

5. Implications

The only plausible explanation for the plenitude of grace bestowed on St. Pio is that God wanted him to serve as a living icon of the Passion of Our Lord:29

• (Stigmata) St. Pio’s wounds corresponded to the Five Holy Wounds. They were received in the context of a vision of Our Lord in the posture of a crucified man. At the end of the vision, Our Lord declared “I unite you to my Passion.” For years, St. Pio begged Our Lord to take the stigmata away or to make them invisible, yet they were miraculously conserved until his death. If anything, Our Lord went out his way to draw attention to their supernatural character. St. Pio’s stigmata were directly responsible for many conversions and reversions to Catholicism.

• (Victim) St. Pio interpreted his extraordinary afflictions as a participation in the Passion of Our Lord. On many occasions, he offered himself “as a victim for poor sinners and souls in Purgatory.” He wrote “Jesus, Mary, and my guardian angel keep encouraging me and repeating to me that the victim to be such needs to shed all of its blood.” He characterized his fevers as a “moral illness” that occurred while he contemplated Our Lord. When Giovanni Savino thanked him for the regeneration of his eye, he replied “If only you knew what this cost me!”

• (Mass) St. Pio’s supernatural charisms reached their apex during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. That is when his lesions bled the most, the odor of sanctity was perceived most intensely and by the most individuals, and he suffered “as far as it is possible for a human body.” He reported that “I suffer the scouring from the beginning to the end of the Mass, more intensely after the Consecration. Communion is the culminating point of my suffering.” Parishioners recalled they were “transfixed by the Eucharist made real to them by this extraordinary man.”

5.1 - Catholicism?

While it is certainly true that there are examples of non-Catholics that were given supernatural charisms, that does not negate the vindicatory implications of the life and teachings of St. Pio for several reasons. For starters, assuming that Catholicism is true, it is not surprising that God occasionally confers extraordinary graces on non-Catholics. The Church authoritatively teaches that “many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure” and that “these elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity.”

However, if Catholicism were false, it would be very surprising that God uniquely privileged, quantitatively and qualitatively, a Catholic priest that harshly criticized Protestantism, Orthodoxy, and even liberal Catholicism with “a staggering abundance of spiritual gifts.” Fr. Schug wrote “I know of no other person in history who has had such a range of gifts encapsulated within himself or herself. There has never been anyone like him.” It is absurd not to heed the opinions of a saint that regularly communicated with Our Lord and was chosen to recapitulate His miracles, sufferings, and character more fully than anyone else in history, excepting the Holy Family.

It would also be very surprising that God facilitated the conversion of many Protestants and Orthodox to Catholicism. Fr. Charles Mortimer Carty wrote “If could make known all the names of the persons whom Padre Pio converted, this book would become rather voluminous.” One of the most famous examples of an “astonishing conversion” is that of a commanding general in the U.S Air Force:30

A general in the Air Force, Dr. Bernardo Rosini, told me the following story:

After the war, I was serving in Bari at the United Air Command, which was responsible for all the new units that were created after Italy’s defeat and that operated side by side with the Air Force.

The General Command for the U.S Air Force was also in Bari. I got to know several officers who told me that Padre Pio had saved them during one of their operations. Even the commanding general played a role in this incident, which was widely discussed. One day he himself wanted to pilot a squadron of bombers on a mission to destroy a German munitions dump that was located near San Giovanni Rotondo. The general said that when he and his pilots were in the vicinity of the target, they saw the figure of a monk with upraised hands appear in the sky. The bombs broke lose from the plane on their own, fell in the woods, destroying the target without the pilots intervening.

That evening this episode was the main topic of conversation among the pilots and their officers. Everyone wanted to know who the monk was. Someone told the commanding general that there was a monk who worked miracles living in San Giovanni Rotondo. He decided to go to San Giovanni Rotondo as soon as the country was liberated to see if it was the same monk he had seen in the sky. After the war the general, accompanied by some of the pilots, went to the Capuchin monastery there. As soon as they entered the sacristy, they saw several monks and immediately recognized Padre Pio as the one they had seen in their planes. Padre Pio introduced himself and, putting his hand on the general’s shoulder, said, “So you’re the one who wanted to destroy everything.” Overwhelmed by the monk’s look and his words, the general knelt down in front of him. Padre Pio had spoken, as usual, in his own dialect, but the general was convinced he had spoken to him in English. The two became friends. The general, who was Protestant, later converted to Catholicism.

Finally, many of St. Pio’s charisms and private revelations implicitly presupposed, explicitly affirmed, or publicly vindicated Catholic doctrines and devotions:

• (Papacy) In his diary, St. Pio wrote “I received various inner insights about several people. I saw his Vicar on earth [Pope Pius XI] filled with bitterness because of the wickedness of men. Many times I was asked to pray and to encourage others to pray for him and for the repentance of these wicked souls.” Towards the end of his life, St. Pio wrote the following in a letter to Pope St. Paul VI:31

  Your Holiness:

  Availing myself of Your Holiness’ meeting with the Capitular Fathers, I unite myself in spirit with my Brothers, and in a spirit of faith, love and obedience to the greatness of Him whom you represent on earth, offer my respectful homage to Your August Person, humbly kneeling at Your feet…

  I know that Your heart suffers much these days on account of the happenings in the Church: for peace in the world, for the great needs of its peoples; but above all, for the lack of obedience of some, even Catholics, to the lofty teachings which You, assisted by the Holy Spirit and in the name of God, have given us. I offer Your Holiness my daily prayers and sufferings, the insignificant but sincere offering of the least of your sons, asking the Lord to comfort you with His grace to continue along the direct yet often burdensome way in defense of those eternal truths which can never change with the times.

  In the name of my spiritual sons and of the “Praying Groups,” I thank Your Holiness for the clear and decisive words You have spoken in the recent encyclical, “Humanae Vitae”, and I reaffirm my own faith and my unconditional obedience to Your inspired directives.

  May God grant truth to triumph, and, may peace be given to His Church, tranquility to the people of the earth, and health and prosperity to Your Holiness, so that when these disturbing clouds pass over, the Reign of God may triumph in all hearts, through the Apostolic Works of the Supreme Shepherd of all Christians.

• (Confession) St. Pio spent most of his time in the confessional. It has been estimated that he listened to “at least 5 million confessions.” St. Pio claimed that God told him what to say in the confessional. Many penitents reported that he confronted them about unconfessed sins or gave them advice that turned out to be prophetic. When a penitent confessed that he “considered Confession a good institution,” but “did not at all believe in the divinity of the Sacrament,” St. Pio replied “These are all heresies, and all your communions have been sacrilegious... You must make a general Confession.” That penitent reported that St. Pio knew about sins that “humanly speaking it was impossible for the Father to know…”32

• (Saints) The miracles associated with St. Pio after his death presupposed and vindicated intercessory prayer to and religious veneration of the saints. Many of the miracles associated with St. Pio presupposed and vindicated the veneration of icons and relics. During his life, St. Pio claimed to have supernatural knowledge about whether people were in Heaven. For example, when a religious sister asked St. Pio about the recently deceased Pope Pius XII, he replied “I have seen him in Paradise.” Fr. Agostino wrote in his diary “Padre Pio was very sad for the death of Pope Pio XII. But Our Lord let him see the Pope in the glory of Paradise.”33

• (Purgatory) When Bishop Alberto Costa asked Padre Pio if he had ever seen a soul in Purgatory, St. Pio replied “I have seen so many that they don’t scare me anymore.” On one occasion, he told a couple of friars that “I was talking to some souls on their way from Purgatory to Paradise. They came to thank me that I remembered them today in the Mass.” That presupposed not only that Purgatory exists, but also that the Mass is a propitiatory sacrifice. St. Pio claimed to have visited Purgatory. When asked how the flames of Purgatory compared to the fire on a hearth, St. Pio replied “they compare like fresh water and boiling water.”34

• (Hell) St. Pio claimed “I have been down to Hell with those miserable, and God made me experience the sufferings of the damned.” In his diary, he wrote:35

I was at the altar for the celebration of Holy Mass when what I am about to describe happened to me. First, I should clarify that this morning I somehow managed to get to the altar. Physical pain and inner turmoil were vying to see who could torment my poor soul the most. I felt these mortal anxieties so intensely that I cannot describe them.

I can only say that as I approached the consumption of the Most Holy Species, this horrible state grew and intensified more and more. I felt like I was dying. A deadly sadness overwhelmed me completely and I believed that everything was over for me: earthly life and eternal life.

The overriding thought that saddened me the most was that of being unable to show more gratitude and love to divine Goodness. It wasn’t so much hell itself that terrified me, but the clear knowledge that down there, there is no more love. And that is what caused me, all at once, in an instant and at every instant, an infinite number of deaths.

We had reached the summit. We had touched the peak of agony and, where we believe we find death, I found comfort and life. At the moment when I consumed the sacred Species of the Holy Host, a light suddenly invaded my whole soul and I clearly saw the Heavenly Mother with the Child Jesus in her arms, who together said to me: “Be calm! We are with you, you belong to us and we belong to you!”

• (Mary) St. Pio reported that, during a period when he was required to celebrate Mass by himself, “I was never alone. Our Lady always kept me company during Mass.” He claimed that “[Our Lady] comes to me whenever I need her.” He marveled that “There are people so foolish that they think they can go through life without the help of the Madonna. What could I ever do without her?” He referred to Our Lady as “Immaculate Mother.” He prayed the Rosary dozens of times every day and called it his “weapon.” He claimed that “the Madonna never refuses me anything that I ask through the prayer of the Rosary.”36

• (Fatima) St. Pio had a special devotion to Our Lady of Fatima. He served as the spiritual father of the World Apostolate of Fatima. He received a miraculous healing through the intercession of Our Lady of Fatima:37

  In April 1959, [St. Pio] was seriously ill with pleurisy, bronchial pneumonia and as well had a cancerous tumor that required chemotherapy. He was bedridden for nine months and there were rumors that he was “deathly ill.”

  The Fatima Pilgrim Virgin statue arrived by helicopter at San Giovanni Rotondo on August 5 and, although he was very weak and needed to be helped there and back, he had the opportunity to venerate the statue in the sacristy the next afternoon. When the helicopter departed, it circled the monastery three times and St. Pio cried out, “Madonnina, since you have come to Italy, I have been laid low with sickness! Now that you are leaving, are you going to leave me this way?” The helicopter headed back to the monastery and the pilot later recounted that he “felt compelled” to do so.

  St. Pio cried out to Mary for help and felt a mysterious force surge throughout his body and declared, “I am healed!” This cure was so real and complete that he resumed his full schedule of duties shortly thereafter… After his healing, St. Pio sent a message and crucifix to the then bishop of Fatima, Bishop John Venancio. The bishop, in return, had a statue of Our Lady of Fatima made and sent to him and it was kept in the sacristy over the vesting table. It was greeted by St. Pio prior to every Mass and it was there that he would devoutly offer his prayers in thanksgiving every day after offering Holy Mass.

• (Lourdes) St. Pio was also devoted to Our Lady of Lourdes. He had an icon of Our Lady of Lourdes on the wall of his cell. When Fr. Alessio asked St. Pio if he would like to make a pilgrimage to Lourdes, St. Pio replied “I do not have to go to Lourdes. I go there every night. I see Our Lady of Lourdes every night.”38

5.2 - Accommodation?

It is not plausible that God was merely ‘accommodating’ St. Pio’s beliefs:

• First, the visible stigmata were maintained against St. Pio’s express wishes. They were not a reward for a virtue, nor a spiritual consolation, nor the answer to a prayer. They were objective, verifiable signs that served no discernible purpose other than vindicating doctrines that are peculiar to Christianity. Relatedly, it would be baffling if God went out of His way to accommodate St. Pio’s false religious beliefs by brutally torturing him on His own initiative. At a minimum, the stigmata and the fevers were intended to vindicate the doctrines of vicarious atonement for sin and co-redemptive suffering as a meritorious cause of grace.

• Second, it is hard to believe that God would accommodate St. Pio’s religious beliefs by aiding and abetting his efforts to convert others to Catholicism. When an Eastern Orthodox woman told St. Pio that “since she felt her religion was very close to the Catholic one, she understood she was too old now to change religion, especially since doing so would caused too much pain for her relatives,” he replied by asking “Do you believe your family will be there before the Lord to answer for you?” He also told her that the Orthodox Church was “dying.” The woman converted. God was giving St. Pio spiritual insights every day. Wouldn’t it have been more ‘accommodating’ to convince St. Pio to be more ecumenical?

• Third, unless St. Pio’s private revelations were substantially true, he was perpetually being deceived about who he was perceiving and communicating with, whether conduct was sinful, and the nature, purpose, and effects of his actions. There is a world of difference between God adapting a message to the culture of its audience and putting somebody in The Truman Show. If you think that God had good reason to put St. Pio in a skeptical scenario, then why not think that he had good reason to put you in one? Ironically, if anyone could reasonably think himself epistemically privileged by God, it would be someone like St. Pio, whom God uniquely privileged in so many other extraordinary ways.

5.3 - Diabolical?

Nor is it plausible that St. Pio’s charisms were diabolical deceptions. As I have pointed out elsewhere, to avoid epistemic self-defeat, you need a non-arbitrary, non-circular principle that distinguishes genuine miracles from counterfeit miracles. Our Lord recommended two criteria for spiritual discernment: “By their fruit…” and “If Satan drives out Satan…” With regard to the first criterion, it is hard to deny that St. Pio bore “good fruit” without giving the Pharisees a pretext to reject Our Lord on the grounds that his doctrine conflicted with their interpretation of prior revelation.

As to the second criterion, did Satan really think it would be a good idea to manifest diabolical power in some of the most audacious and conspicuous ways he ever has in a predominantly Catholic country at a time when the world was becoming increasingly secular? And did he really decide that the best way to do so was by vindicating a priest that spent almost all his time in the confessional bringing liars, adulterers, thieves, and blasphemers to repentance? Once again, if this criterion that Our Lord recommended has any utility at all, then it definitely applies to the case at hand.

6. Objections

6.1 - Carbolic Acid?

Objection: A woman told her local bishop that a she had, in strict secrecy, requested carbolic acid from a pharmacy on behalf of St. Pio in 1919. Italian historian Sergio Luzzatto unearthed a note that St. Pio wrote to her which reads “I am in need of 200g or 300g of carbolic acid for sterilizing. I pray you to send it to me on Sunday.”

This does not lend credibility to the theory that St. Pio’s lesions were artificial:39

• First, Bishop Rossi asked St. Pio “Whether he has ever requested pure carbolic acid from people outside of the convent?” St. Pio replied “I recall request some for the use of the community—actually, of the minor seminary of which I was director, in case it wasn’t available in the convent.” Bishop Rossi followed up by asking “Whether the request was made in such a way as to remain unknown to the brothers themselves.” St. Pio replied “No, especially considering that in the past I was almost alone with the Father Guardian. If anything, the only purpose was to prevent the people that had to carry it from knowing it was a medicament requested without a doctor’s prescription.” Bishop Rossi judged this credible.

• Second, the fact that St. Pio had access to carbolic acid does not undermine any of my arguments for the authenticity of the stigmata, since none of them depend on the assumption that it would have been impossible for him to get his hands on that substance. In addition to the considerations that have already been discussed in the first and fourth sections, it is also worth mentioning that, during his second examination, Dr. Festa cleaned the lesions with “a cloth soaked in ethyl alcohol and glycerinated starch” and did not detect “any trace of reaction.” That implied carbolic acid hadn’t been used recently. Dr. Festa also noted that carbolic acid would have destroyed any perfume that came into contact with it.

• Third, if anything, this episode tends to undermine the hypothesis that the stigmata were artificial. If St. Pio was the sort of guy that was able to get away with a series of grand conspiracies over a span of decades, isn’t it a bit strange that his go-to plan for sourcing the over-the-counter medicament that he was using to artificially maintain the stigmata was to write a short note asking a woman that he barely knew to get some from a local pharmacy on his behalf? And then this woman turned around and snitched on him to a bishop? Nothing about this suggests the sort of operational security that would have been necessary for him to have withstood the intense scrutiny to which he would later be subject.

6.2 - Fr. Gemelli?

Objection: The famous psychologist Fr. Agostino Gemelli believed that St. Pio was a psychopath and that his stigmata were artificial.40

Fr. Gemelli only spoke with St. Pio for a few minutes, so his opinion is of little value. Emanuale Brunatto characterized the interaction between them as follows:

Padre Gemelli came late at night, unexpected, and I accompanied him to a cell for the night. He didn’t see Padre Pio. The morning after he met Padre Pio in the hallway. Padre Pio was going to the sacristy. The Guardian and me followed them. The conversation lasted no more than three or four minutes. Padre Gemelli said: “Padre Pio, I came for a clinical exam of your sores.” The Capuchin replied: “Do you have a written authorization?” When Padre Gemelli said no, Padre Pio replied: “In this case I am not authorized to show them to you.” Padre Gemelli appeared dumbfounded, and watching Padre Pio leaving to say Mass, said: “Well. Padre Pio. We’ll talk about it again.” After a little while, Padre Gemelli left the convent.

Fr. Benedetto reported “Father Gemelli, as a doctor, never visited Padre Pio. I would point out that the witnesses remember all the details with absolute certainty, as if the event had occurred yesterday, and all can confirm this under oath, because all, with the exception of Father Gerardi, Conventual Minor, are alive and can be questioned.”

In his first report to the Holy Office, written in 1920, Fr. Gemelli himself admitted that “I have approached Padre Pio, without any intention of studying him, and without doing any medical examination…” In the report, he acknowledged that “Padre Pio doesn’t show the signs of the mental illnesses that have a religious content” and referred to him as “an exemplary man,” but nonetheless concluded that “In the whole it seems to me a case of suggestion unconsciously produced by Padre Benedetto...”

In 1926, Dr. Festa wrote a lengthy reply to Gemelli’s report and sent it to the Holy Office. He pointed out that “Padre Gemelli sentenced ‘a priori’ without knowing anything about Padre Pio’s wounds, and without even the most elementary psychological research.” The Holy Office sent Dr. Festa’s reply to Fr. Gemelli and asked for his opinion. In 1927, Fr. Gemelli responded with another report that was chalk full of gross exaggerations and demonstrable falsehoods:

• First, he now claimed that, in 1919, he had examined St. Pio’s wounds and had “very long conversations with him.” Actually, his claim to have examined the lesions contradicts his first report and is disputed by multiple witnesses.

• Second, he now claimed that “Padre Pio is a subject of very limited intelligence” and “has the known features of a marked degree of mental deficiency.” That is a baseless assertion that is contradicted by everyone that actually knew St. Pio.

• Third, he now claimed St. Pio was “arrogant, a psychopath, and a self-destructive person.” In his first report, written five years before this reply to Dr. Festa, he said “Padre Pio is a man of elevated religious life. He is an exemplary man… there are no signs of the mental illnesses with religious overtones…” What changed?

• Fourth, he now claimed that “In his writings Padre Pio never shows a soul in love with God.” I would like to invite everyone to read St. Pio’s writings and then to judge whether an honest person could level that charge against him.

In 1957, Fr. Gemelli contradicted his third report in a letter to a journalist:41

I read in the latest issue of your newspaper an episode that concerns me. According to your writing, I had asked to examine Padre Pio’s stigmata, and having been refused, I had not failed to express my complete perplexity to the appropriate person. The episode is false; I never asked Padre Pio to examine the stigmata, also because no one ever asked me to do so. Such an examination would have required a long stay on my part in San Giovanni Rotondo and a whole series of scientific tests. This, to re-establish the truth of the facts.

Historian Gerardo Saldutto decisively refutes attempts at harmonization:42

Regarding the medical examination never performed by Father Gemelli, there is unanimous testimony from all those interviewed, in addition to the written evidence now reported and collected by Father Luigi d’Avellino. Only one person claims that Father Gemelli went to San Giovanni Rotondo not once but twice, carrying out the check-up on the second trip: this was reported to her by Father Gemelli himself. No other source mentions a second trip, or, much less, a medical examination performed by Father Agostino Gemelli.