Was Padre Pio a Fraud?

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devonsams

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I was talking to my friend and he said: “It is an absurd the Catholic Church gives Sainthood to a man who says that he had christ stigmatas, and he supposedly made miracles, how can I pray to him if maybe he was a bad guy who wanted all his life fame, and he was faking all of this to become famous and become a saint? I don’t feel comfortable to pray to a man who was maybe a bad guy and was pretending and playing with people all this time.”
Please how can i answer this to him? He is a catholic.
 
Your friend is just offering verbal rhetoric for which he has no cause other than he feels like saying those things or he’s echoing the same sentiment stated rhetorically by someone else. If I may suggest reading the book Padre Pio Under Investigation. Here is my review of the book just recently. And if you can, find the medical examinations of Padre Pio by Doctors Romanelli, Festa, and Bignami. Some of their medical examinations are described in the book above, but perhaps you prefer their source material.
 
Before beatifying and then canonizing him, the Church would have gone over his life very carefully, including looking into any accusations against him, and realized that such accusations were false. Furthermore, the Church officially declared that two miracles occurred through his intercession after he died, miracles which show that God Himself is promoting his sanctity. I wonder though, where did he get these ideas about Padre Pio from? If you do talk to him again, perhaps you could let us know where he got them from.
 
devonsams said:
I was talking to my friend and he said: “It is an absurd the Catholic Church gives Sainthood to a man who says that he had christ stigmatas, and he supposedly made miracles, how can I pray to him if maybe he was a bad guy who wanted all his life fame, and he was faking all of this to become famous and become a saint? I don’t feel comfortable to pray to a man who was maybe a bad guy and was pretending and playing with people all this time.”
Please how can i answer this to him? He is a catholic.
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Then, Saint Francis is also a fraud, since he bore the stigmata. Your friend may be a great guy, but his statement is “jus’ plain ignant”
 
He doesn’t have to pray to him. At least, not privately. In Mass we invoke all of the Saints. That he’s a Saint means he is in Heaven-no more or less. Whether he lived a good life is a different matter.

I think you should almost always defer to the Church for guidance on such things or else you’ll stop veneration of all Saints you haven’t seen with your own eyes. Still, if your friend has what he feels are good reasons not to venerate Padre Pio he doesn’t have to.
 
Saint Pio was not a fraud. Have you read anything about him, or done any research? If you had you would never pose such a question. God have mercy on us all!
 
The Church never lead us astray by canonizing a fraudulent or otherwise evil person. This would negate the Church’s infallibility. You can look up some pro-St. Pio literature and hand it to your friend.
 
According to Satan, yes, he was a fraud. Satan has been trying to convince quite a few people. A handful, really, compared to the countless souls that s. Padre Pio has saved and will save until the end of time.

Never the Holy Fathers, however.

When pope Piux XI was discussing whether it was appropriate to suspend Padre Pio a divinis - the worst punishment that can be inflicted on a priest - the Pope and the cardinals reunited with him saw a friar enter, kneel before the Pope, kiss his foot, and say: “Your Holiness, for the good of the Church, do not allow this”. Then he stood, walked towards the door, and left. The Pope interrupted the meeting and ordered his secretary to find out how that religious could have entered in his room without anyone stopping him. The secretary, the ushers, and the swiss guards stated that they had seen no friar. Pius XI then sent Card. Silj to find out the whereabouts of Padre Pio that day. The cardinal found out without the possibility of error that on the day, Padre Pio was far away, in the convent of s. Giovanni Rotondo. Pius XI said in reply: “digitus Dei est hic”.

This event has many witnesses. I can cite as a reference the book “A tu per tu con Padre Pio”, by Renzo Allegri.

The stigmata of Padre Pio made him truly a sign of contradiction. Not that stigmata were something uncommon amidst saints - many bore them, though invisibly or temporarily.

A few examples? s. Caterina de’ Ricci, s. Teresa of Avila, s. Carlo of Sezze, s. Marguerite Marie Alacoque, s. Veronica Giuliani, s. Paul of the Cross, s. Maria Francesca of the Five Wounds, s. Faustina Kowalska, s. Gemma Galgani, s. Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi

The life of s. Padre Pio, seen from outside, was truly a life hidden in Christ. With the most perfect obedience to Holy Church, Padre Pio endured the greatest sorrows, both psychological and physical, all the while always doing God’s will perfectly.

He spent hours and hours in confession, to the point that he knew immediately if a penitent was there to be absolved but had not repented. He was notorious for roughly sending people away when he would notice their hypocrisy - something that led to the immediate conversion and salvation of a great number of unrepentant sinners.

His Holy Mass lasted for hours - it was a true representation of the sacrifice on the Calvary, something that anyone who assisted can easily witness. He truly acted in persona Christi.

Padre Pio was treated with utmost diffidence by Holy Church due to the necessity of great prudence and due to the works of Satan. He was at a point forbidden from confessing and from celebrating Holy Mass, confined in his cell and prohibited from meeting anyone. He willfully obeyed. However, countless witnesses have shown how through the mystical gifts proper to such a saint he was not constrained in his good works by the walls - through prayer and the help of the peoples’ guardian angels, he did many things even in places far distant. Sometimes people would come from far away, from other countries even, and he would turn, recognize them, and greet them - much to their surprise.

His sorrowful stigmata were analyzed by many great physicians, who clearly stated that they perforated the hands and the feet from top to bottom. Nobody could deny that the wounds were there. So Satan tried to make people believe that they were not God’s gift, but a fraud. However, God overthrew his evil works in two ways:
  • by the fact that s. Padre Pio bore the stigmata for 50 years, all the while his hands and feet remained perfectly functional. With such wounds, complications and consequences for the muscles and the nerves will occur immediately, the finger should have been swollen and red, without being able to move. Sensibility would be altered. On the other hand, the hands of Padre Pio, as countless witnessed, besides the wounds were normal, clean, and functional.
  • by the fact that on the 50th anniversary of the reception of the stigmata, suddenly, they disappeared from his hands. This was witnessed by many at his last Mass.
When someone once greeted him for the anniversary of the stigmata, he started to cry profusely and said: “They aren’t medals, you know!”.

Consider the following photos as a visible witness of the above.

Padre Pio and the stigmata

Close-up image of his right hand (notice the wound, and the perfect state of the fingers).

Holding the Holy Eucharist (notice the functionality of the fingers)

With the Book of Blessings

And now the most impressive ones - from his last Mass.
“This is my body”
“this is my blood”

Notice his joyful expression holding the Holy Eucharist: perhaps for the first time in a lifetime He was free from excruciating pain during the Holy Mass, rejoicing at the presence of his Beloved Jesus.

 
devonsams said:
I was talking to my friend and he said: “It is an absurd the Catholic Church gives Sainthood to a man who says that he had christ stigmatas, and he supposedly made miracles, how can I pray to him if maybe he was a bad guy who wanted all his life fame, and he was faking all of this to become famous and become a saint? I don’t feel comfortable to pray to a man who was maybe a bad guy and was pretending and playing with people all this time.”
Please how can i answer this to him? He is a catholic.
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There is absolutely no doubt that Padre Pio was a genuine saint. I recommend reading a new book, “The Truth about Padre Pio’s Stigmata, and other Wonders of the Saint.”
 
Are there any non-Catholic sources confirming Saint Padre Pio’s miracles?
 
I have read a couple of books and sources about him. I have no doubt in my mind that Padre Pio is a saint. He never did anything contrary to Catholic teaching. God gave him special graces to help souls convert.
 
I don’t know if Padre Pio was a Saint or not, but its has been oommon knowledge if nails were put into Christ they were put in the wrist not hands, as the hands would never of held.
I realize in all photos his hands are nailed but that is not the way they would of done it.
 
Luvtosew said:
its has been common knowledge if nails were put into Christ they were put in the wrist not hands, as the hands would never of held. I realize in all photos his hands are nailed but that is not the way they would of done it.
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Well, this “common knowledge” is mistaken, for it is based on faulty research.

The best work ever written on this topic may be “The Crucifixion of Jesus: A Forensic Inquiry” by Frederick T. Zugibe, M.S., M.D., Ph.D, world-renowned medical examiner and forensic pathologist, who dedicated decades to the study of the crucifixion, and demonstrated by scientific experiments that the work of Dr. Pierre Barbet (the one claiming that the nails entered the wrists through the “space of Destot”) was flawed (sorry @ thesmiter1, the article was interesting but based on Barbet’s erroneous conclusions).

The Holy Shroud only shows the back of the hand, and Dr. Zugibe demonstrated that a nail can very well enter the upper part of the palm of the hand, a very strong area, and emerge at the site depicted on the Shroud, without breaking any bone, and still fully able to support the full weight of the body.

image

He also points out that Monsignor Alfonso Paleotto, Archbishop of Bologna, who accompanied St. Charles Borromeo to Turin in 1598, had already pointed out this hypothesis: that the nail would have entered the upper part of the palm obliquely, and pointing toward the arm, it would have emerged where the Shroud depicts it.

Dr. Zugibe provides sound reasons in favor of this hypothesis:
  • The path through the upper palm is very strong and anatomically sound.
  • The path ends exactly where the shroud shows the wound image.
  • In the ancient literature, Lipsius and other authors and painters and sculptors related and depicted the hands that were transfixed in crucifixion.
  • It assures that no bones are broken in accord with Exodus 12:46 and Numbers 9:12.
  • It explains the apparent lengthening of the fingers of the Turin Shroud because of nail compression at this area.
  • Lastly, it is where most of the stigmatists( prior to Dr. Barbet’s book ) like St. Francis of Assisi, Padre Pio, Theresa of Konnersruth, St. Catherine of Sienna, Catherine of Ricci, Louise Lateau, etc. have displayed their wounds throughout the centuries.
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Was the practice of nailing the hands vs. the wrists common? That is a different question. Many things were done differently in the Passion of our Lord. The scourging, not usually given to someone to be condemned to death, was excessive…the crowning with thorns was unprecedented…the sudden death with a loud scream (which excluded death by asphyxia, another “common knowledge” but flawed fact) and piercing of the side were also uncommon…

From the standpoint of faith, the fact that the Scriptures clearly read: “they have pierced my hands and my feet” and “I have engraved you on my hands” and “put your fingers here and look at my hands”, that stigmatists throughout the centuries have displayed the wounds in the same locations, and the fact that mystical visions throughout the centuries (the most “visible” one perhaps being the painting of the Divine Mercy) have shown the Lord with the wounds on His hands, should leave no doubt as to how His crucifixion was carried out.
 
  1. It is completely possible that He could have been nailed through the hands AND bound to the Cross by rope.
  2. I don’t think it’s really relevant whether the Stigmata is completely anatomically accurate; the point is to portray Jesus’s suffering on the Cross in a tangible way.
 
Thanks for the pic , could of done without.:o Now he had sores in his hands or dried blood whatever, how it got there is another thing and how they remained is another . Its obvious the man was not mentally and physically well most of his life.

I don’t believe in the shroud of turin either, or the miracles they show with the eucharist with the ventricle.

Now I do believe some people many get a miraculous healing upon taking the Lords Supper if they believe.

So whatever yous want to believe thats fine.

and whats this her visions

Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich was** shown visions from God **of Christ’s Crucifixion. She describes Christ being nailed through the palm of the hand, but does not say what part of the palm (The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, TAN Books and Publishers, p. 271). Her visions contradict those who would claim that the nails went through the place commonly called the wrist.

Saint Bridget of Sweden** also received visions of the Crucifixion**. She is more specific. She states: “they transfixed His hand in the part where the bone was firmest.” (Revelations to St. Bridget, TAN Books and Publishers, p. 45). The part of the hand where the bones are the firmest is the heel of the hand

this is what extreme imagination will do to you,
 
Luvtosew said:
Thanks for the pic , could of done without.:o Now he had sores in his hands or dried blood whatever, how it got there is another thing and how they remained is another . Its obvious the man was not mentally and physically well most of his life.

I don’t believe in the shroud of turin either, or the miracles they show with the eucharist with the ventricle.

Now I do believe some people many get a miraculous healing upon taking the Lords Supper if they believe.

So whatever yous want to believe thats fine.
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You can really pick and choose. There are some crazy people that believe that a guy that died on a cross was able to go someplace in the sky (heaven???) by himself. How can the body of someone that died on a cross float up in the air?:confused:
 
Cristiano said:
There are some crazy people that believe that a guy that died on a cross was able to go someplace in the sky (heaven???) by himself. How can the body of someone that died on a cross can float up in the air?:confused:
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Funniest post I’ve ever read 🍿
 
Cristiano said:
You can really pick and choose. There are some crazy people that believe that a guy that died on a cross was able to go someplace in the sky (heaven???) by himself. How can the body of someone that died on a cross float up in the air?:confused:
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Let’s be fair-in this case you CAN pick and choose, because nobody is ever bound to believe private revelation.
 
Marc_Anthony said:
Let’s be fair-in this case you CAN pick and choose, because nobody is ever bound to believe private revelation.
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True. We can also freely choose to believe that s. Padre Pio was “obviously not mentally and physically well most of his life”.

But what we cannot argue against is the fact that the stigmata of this canonized saint have been acknowledged by Holy Church.

From this address of bl. Pope John Paul II:
Totally absorbed in God, always bearing the marks of Jesus’ Passion in his body, he was bread broken for men and women starving for God the Father’s forgiveness. His stigmata, like those of Francis of Assisi, were the work and sign of divine mercy, which redeemed the world by the Cross of Jesus Christ. Those open, bleeding wounds spoke of God’s love for everyone, especially for those sick in body and spirit.
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