Saint Pio of Pietrelcina

Francesco Forgione was born in Pietrelcina, just outside Benevento, on May 25, 1887, into a family of small landowners. His father, Grazio, emigrated to America twice to pay for his studies. He joined the Capuchins at sixteen and took the name Pio. His health was always terrible: fevers, collapses, whole years spent at home because he couldn’t cope with life in the friary. He was also called up during the Great War and discharged because of illness. In 1916 he was sent to San Giovanni Rotondo, on the Gargano, to a remote friary that not even a road reached. He stayed there fifty-two years. On September 20, 1918, while he was praying before the crucifix in the choir, the stigmata appeared. They stayed for fifty years, and that was the beginning of everything: the crowds, the pilgrims, lines at the confessional that lasted for days. And it was also the beginning of his troubles. The Church was very harsh with him: twice he was forbidden to celebrate Mass in public, to hear confessions, to answer letters. He was spied on, secretly recorded, investigated for years. He obeyed every time without a word. Meanwhile he built the Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza, the “Home for the Relief of Suffering,” which opened in 1956 and is today one of the largest hospitals in southern Italy: he wanted the people of the Gargano not to have to go to Rome anymore for treatment. He died in San Giovanni Rotondo on September 23, 1968. John Paul II declared him a saint in 2002. If your name is Pio, today is your name day.