Jesus mythicism and atheism

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Unfortunately, there are a million stories of Padre Pio on the Internet and many of them are not reliably sourced. I would suggest people take whatever they read about on the Internet with a grain of salt. At the same time it is entirely possible that Padre Pio would have said such a thing because he had a gift to read hearts and would have known what to say to make a man repent. He would have likewise realized it wouldn’t work with you and not said it.

As for not wanting to interact with Padre Pio, members of his order who knew him said he was actually funny and kind and not a curmudgeon. He was only serious and stern when it was necessary to be that way. Having sais that, we all have saints who don’t sound too pleasant to us. I personally would not want to interact with St. Josemaria Escriva based on what I have read, yet he led many to the Lord. Different strokes for different folks.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
At the same time it is entirely possible that Padre Pio would have said such a thing because he had a gift to read hearts and would have known what to say to make a man repent.
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Or… You know what. Just gonna leave that Or hanging.
 
Hang what you like. St. Pio is in heaven and if I’m lucky enough to meet him, I’ll be sure to ask him, “Padre Pio, did you really say that about ‘You’ll know when you get there’ and what was the deal with the skirts 8 inches below the knee and women not wearing trousers?” I’m sure we’ll have a good talk.

Padre Pio is largely responsible for my own Catholic practice so anybody who wants to cast aspersions on him can talk to my bear paw.
 
I didn’t read the whole Padre Pio article but I did get that there were a hundred boxes of documentation about him. The article, as lengthy as it is, barely scratches the surface and it’s safe to say that it collects those anecdotes which most appealed to the writer. I’m sure that if I wrote it up, I would have come up with a different selection, probably describing someone who brought out holiness in others through his patience, kindness, and humility.
 
The internet is everyone and all ideas - that’s the problem there is so much fake news on social media and the internet its confusing people and they can no longer descern the truth. If a couple hundred years it will be a real fight to prove the holocaust happened if the building no longer exist - people already believe its a hoax.
 
Besides the stigmata, St. Padre Pio had the gift of reading people’s hearts. Sometimes he would tell the penitent his or her sins which they forgot. And if a person was not properly disposed to make a good confession he would send them away until they were ready to make a good confession.
 
Did you glean that from Wikipedia? i.e. Wikipedia entry: " From 1924 to 1931 , the Holy See made statements denying that the events in Pio’s life were due to any divine cause."

I think that Wikipedia can be helpful, it can also be unreliable as a source.

If you read on Padre Pio - Wikipedia - HERE
" Finally, in the mid-1960s [Pope Paul VI] (pope from 1963 to 1978) dismissed all accusations against Padre Pio."…" After further consideration of Padre Pio’s virtues and ability to do good even after his death, including discussion of another healing attributed to his intercession, John Paul II declared Padre Pio a saint on 16 June 2002."
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Saints are canonized for heroic virtue. They are not perfect examples of every virtue. This is why some of our saints can be a bit unappealing to put it mildly. Catholic Answers Magazine: “Imperfections of The Saints”
The Imperfections of the Saints | Catholic Answers As Dorothy Day once observed:
I have since heard a priest friend of ours remark gloomily that one could go to hell imitating the imperfections of the saints.
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We do not become saints by copying the saints. We become saints by loving God as they did.
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The above quote by one priest speaking gloomily can travel around from person to person, even blog to blog etc. - and as it does, it can be given much more authority as to source than the truth i.e one priest speaking gloomily. Rather, it becomes a (totally incorrect) fact. This can certainly be the case with our saints.

Where it exists, it is best to read the Vatican statement on a saint (not all the saints have an entry. I think the more modern saints do however). Vatican Website: St Padre Pio da Pietrelcina
 
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A direct quote from

http://web.archive.org/web/20100422205408/https://www.ewtn.com/padrepio/man/biography2.htm
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EWTN:
D espite the restrictions and controversies, Padre Pio’s ministry continued. From 1924 – 1931 various statements were made by the Holy See that denied the supernaturality of Padre Pio’s phenomena. On June 9, 1931, the Feast of Corpus Christi, Padre Pio was ordered by the Holy See to desist from all activities except the celebration of the Mass, which was to be in private. By early 1933, Pope Pius XI ordered the Holy See to reverse its ban on Padre Pio’s public celebration of Mass, saying, “I have not been badly disposed toward Padre Pio, but I have been badly informed.”
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So Wikipedia is only as accurate as the EWTN bio it relies upon.
 
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The internet just keeps perpetuating it. You can tell a lie one hundred times, but it never gets any more true. Many atheists believe that christians borrowed stories from other religions and added Jesus in there, in an attempt to gain more converts. It’s simply not true, though. One great source is Ovid’s book called Metamorphoses.

Ovid and Pausanias, who are among the most reliable sources on greek and roman paganism we have, never mentioned a crucifixion or a physical resurrection involving guys like Attis, Dionysus or Julius Caesar. Believe me, if they had heard myths involving resurrections and such, they would have mentioned it and it would have been quite an anomaly in the pagan community, so it would have been widespread.
 
MasterHaster said:
Even the Holy See cannot seem to evaluate Padre Pio with any confidence.
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Padre Pio has been a canonized saint for years now. That is the end of the matter as far as the Church is concerned.

Please remember that there are many saints including St. Faustina (whose writings were suppressed for years and the priest promoting them censured) and St. Mary MacKillop (who was excommunicated for years) whom the Church had a wrong idea about for a while but then got it right, understood the person was a saint, and canonized them.

There is absolutely no doubt in the current Church that Padre Pio was anything but a saint, nor is there any doubt that he had mystical gifts. There is occasionally some doubt about certain stories told of Padre Pio because many stories, quotes etc have been attributed to him and some of them may have been embellished or made up by other people. Also, we are not required to believe private revelations, so while we are required to believe that Padre Pio is indeed in heaven enjoying the Beatific VIsion, we are not required to believe any supernatural pronouncement he made, for the same reasons we are required to believe that Francisco and Jacinta Marto are saints in heaven but aren’t required to believe the messages of Fatima.
 
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He’s huge around here because this is a heavily Italian area and the Italians love him. He has his own large shrine in the next diocese over that was built by a woman whose daughter he cured. Apparently the girl was born without a bladder and after her mother took her to see Padre Pio she miraculously grew one, so her mom and family spent years working to get him canonized after his death and then built this giant shrine. I did not realize he was so popular in Ireland (It’s not like Ireland isn’t chockablock with its own saints and mystics) till I visited and saw prayer cards of him in the churches.
 
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Your Da sounds like a great Catholic father. I hope one day you will follow his example 🙂

Me mither was also a great Catholic. It’s because of her and my other Mother Mary that I do what i do. St. Pio also gave me a kick in the pants once to up my prayer game. At that time I didn’t know he had a shrine up the road with first class relics and a replica tomb so ever since I’ve pictured him flying over the hills to my house in the middle of the night, it would be a short trip for him, only about 30 miles.
 
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StudentMI said:
I will say one thing. Given the plethora of gods dying across world mythologies I can see a case being made that the story of Jesus was just one variation on it.
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I believe differently. Deep within man there is a desire to overcome death. So, ancient men, trying to understand the meaning of their lives structured belief systems that had leaders that “rose from the dead.”

Thanks be to God that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity was Incarnated for our salvation. He came for us living now, and also for those who lived before He came to this earth. Jesus is the One who truly rose from the dead!
 
Because some atheist in an attempt to disprove the religion says he never existed some go as far as to say he was created by the algamation of pagan dieties
Or even worse like Cesar messiah that said that there was an elaborate conspiracy to create jesus to make the jews more pacifist ( i mean by that logic they need to create a pacifist religion for every province that had tendencies to rebell or more legions to control it like brittian)

Only very few historians do not believe in a jesus like figure in first century judea
 
Christianity is a revealed religion. God reveals himself to whomever He chooses. Atheists simply haven’t had that revelation or have had it and their pride and hard heartedness have got in the way.

As a result I would take anything an atheist says about faith with a pinch of salt. “Hear now this, oh foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears and hear not.”

Take it from one whose life has been transformed from utter disaster to one that is blessed, and in his work has seen it happen in many others, that Jesus was and is real.
 
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