Was Padre Pio a fraud

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Tis_Bearself said:
The canonization process itself has “changed significantly” over the years.
I’m pretty sure the changes weren’t so they could push a bunch of questionable saints through, but rather to improve the process. At my work, and in the courts, and everywhere else, processes are continuously improved.

The vast amount of good that Padre Pio (and Mother Theresa, and other saints) have done both directly for people during their lifetime, and after their death through their intercession or example, is pretty obvious.
Furthermore, they have both been canonized by the Church, and Catholics are bound to accept the canonization, so suggesting that they are fraudulent or evil is slander, pure and simple, and shouldn’t be tolerated on a Catholic board.

it’s fine to talk about difficult aspects of their human personalities, such as the fact that Mother Theresa by her own admissions suffered from doubt and Padre Pio could sometimes be in a bad mood or may not have liked women wearing trousers or whatever, but claiming that they went around faking stigmata or stealing funds is going too far IMO.
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You’re drawing a lot of conclusions from the simple point I offered. I’m not claiming that Padre Pio faked his stigmata. I’m not claiming that the Church is scamming followers into accepting illegitimate saints. I only noted that it isn’t really accurate to refer to a devil’s advocate as it once was. Its role has been limited since 1983 and it is no longer referred to by the same name.

As for the canonization of Padre Pio and others more recently, I assume those claiming they’re invalid are probably using, in part, the shift to the devil’s advocate position to make their case. I’m pointing this out. I’m not claiming it’s valid.
 
There have been about 500 reported cases of stigmata, but you are aware that pretty much every stigmatic has been unique in one way or another, right? So should we not believe in stigmatics because this person’s manifestation of stigmata doesn’t match that person’s stigmata?

For example—
  • St. Francis never bled from his hands and feet; only his side. He was the only stigmatic to have nails appear in his wounds, but they were nails made of his flesh.
  • Juana of the Cross’ wounds gave forth the smell of perfume
  • St. Christina of Stommeln had wounds in her hand, feet, forehead, and side. They bled every Easter.
  • Maria Domenica Lazzeri would receive the stigmata every Thursday evening to Friday afternoon, but would recover completely by Friday evening.
  • Catherine of Siena had hers, but prayed that they become invisible. They later became visible once again upon her deathbed.
  • Rita of Cascia had a forehead wound. People would sometimes observe a light coming from it.
  • Bl. Osanna of Mantua received her stigmata, but they were very faint during her life. They became very distinct after her death.
  • Padre Pio’s stigmata disappeared without a scar in the last few days of his death.
  • Teresa of Avila had a transverberation, which is a stigmata of the heart, like a puncture.
  • St. Catherine d’Ricci had the stigmata all the time, but relived the Passion every Thursday/Friday.
  • Ven. Catherine Anne Emmerich had an external wound over her heart, and an internal 3-inch wound upon her heart in the shape of a cross.
  • Marie-Rose Ferron had stigmata, including the shoulder stigmata, which manifested as a red blotch, whereas the others were more like scars.
  • Therese Neumann had 45 distinguishable marks from the Passion, and suffered the Passion an estimated 750 times during her life.
  • Passitea of Siena had the usual stigmata, and then received an invisible heart stigmata. She said that her heart had been removed during the course of this mystical union. 23 years later, after her death, her critical bishop asked for an autopsy. Her heart had the outer wall, but the inner bits were only a bit of dried muscle.
 
So, if you sort of look at it from the perspective that we’re dealing with spiritual truths, which is much bigger/far less limited than mere medical truth, or scientific truth, or historic truth. The whole point of the Shroud, and of Stigmatics in general, are to call to mind the Passion and Suffering of Jesus, in order to save souls. Few of us have the spiritual chops to deal with what a genuine mystic experiences. If you’re looking at the Shroud, and mentally comparing it to stigmatics A, B, and C, and deciding that none of the four match, so they all must be fake… Or even that, “Hey, medical truth sez blood doesn’t smell like flowers, so this stigmatic is obviously a fake” or “Hey, scientific truth sez he should bleed to death, and he hasn’t, so he’s fake, too”… it’s missing the point.

And for what it’s worth, I looked up the word “wrist” in my Cassell’s. It says “prima palmae pars (Cels.)”. Presumably, that’s an attribution to the 2nd. c. author, Celsus (Kelsos/Κέλσος), who was famous for Origen’s rebuttal to his work, in “Contra Celsum”. I’ve read that during the time the Gospels were composed (1st c., around 70-80-90) that they didn’t actually have a word for “wrist” in Latin/Greek/Hebrew/Aramaic. The word “hand” (“manus”) covered pretty much everything that a cubit measured-- from the forefinger to the elbow. (They did have a distinction between fingers and thumbs, though.) The Latin “carpus” comes from the Greek “karpos”, which seems to usually mean “fruit” during our period, but may possibly have come from the Indo-European base “kwerp-” which means “to turn”. But according to the etymology I’m reading, you don’t get “carpus” as “wrist” until the 17th century. So it took about 1500 years between Celsus identifying the wrist as “prima palmae pars” and modern anatomists to say, “Hey, let’s call this a carpus.” I don’t have sufficient Greek to sift through the fruit vs. wrist meanings of καρπός, but someone with better linguistics than I have can probably find the first cited usage of καρπός in an anatomical sense. But the second point is, I’m 99.9% sure you’re reading your Bible in translation, and first-century authors didn’t really have the same nuance of vocabulary that you and I have with 21st-c. English…
 
michael-kaw said:
I heard that the saint Padre Pio faked his stigmata and that there was undeneyable evidence that he used acid for his stigmatas. Is any of this true? can you please give me something saying that all these claims are not true?
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That is nonsense and the burden of proof is not on us to refute unsubstantiated claims. The burden of proof is on the person making such claims.
YOU are the one who has to provide us with some evidence to back up what you allegedly heard!!
 
If the evidence is undeniable why do you question it?
Havent seen it myself but am always willing to be enlightened.
 
Michael-kaw, Padre Pio knew if he was lying to the public, he would be lying to God, and so allowed God Himself to testify to the Divine Reality of the Stigmata and the holiness of Padre Pio, by healings brought about by his intercession on behalf of others after his death. God bless you!
 
JamalChristophr said:
He definitely was not. There are a few books on how rigorously Padre Pio was investigated during his time by many diligent skeptics. This is well documented.
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Why was his stigmata in his palms rather than his wrists, which is most likely where Jesus was nailed to the Cross?
 
A likely ‘best’ place for the nails is the space of Destot near the wrist. The Shroud of Turin seems to show this.
 
I’ve seen it in quite a few biographies, but most spiritualize the story outside of the facts. The best depiction of this event I’ve found was actually a movie, Padre Pio: Miracle Man. It went outside of the direct life of Padre Pio and researched the interplay between Gemelli and the Pope to write the scenes.
 
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Thank you for yet one more time providing me hope. I’m still trying to figure all this out and truly believe and not be fearful of death and non existence constantly and these help to take away a little worry at least!!!
 
I’ve read about Gemelli before, but the question I have, that I have not yet seen an answer to and maybe someone else can answer, is why did Gemelli have such animosity towards Padre Pio?

I am always baffled when you have these people in clerical or religious life who are supposed to be kinder, gentler and more enlightened than us laypeople, and yet they are carrying on like jealous egotists. Often it seems like the conflict is over money.
 
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24 Now Thomas (also known as Didymus[a]), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
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Out of the approximately 500 reported cases of stigmata, I think the only one who had marks in the wrist was Brother Gino Burresi, a modern stigmatic— and he seems to have quite the amount of controversy swirling around him. 😦

So, there’s the question-- does God contradict himself? Suppose you have 300, 400, 500 stigmatics, and, despite the amazing variety they all have amongst themselves, everyone with nail marks in the “manus” area has them in the hands— do you think that’s because, perhaps, there’s the teeniest chance God thinks the nail marks belong in the hands? 😛
 
midori said:
So, there’s the question-- does God contradict himself? Suppose you have 300, 400, 500 stigmatics, and, despite the amazing variety they all have amongst themselves, everyone with nail marks in the “manus” area has them in the hands— do you think that’s because, perhaps, there’s the teeniest chance God thinks the nail marks belong in the hands? 😛
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Then why is it in the wrists on the Shroud, and how could so many crucifixion victims remain on the cross without falling off?
 
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At the time, there was a pseudo-movement among some clergy and religious with scientific backgrounds that, in this age of science, God no longer worked through supernatural miracles and instead conducted His works through scientists, doctors, engineers etc. Gemelli was of the opinion that there was no longer room for miracles in the Church. Padre Pio was an affront to Gemelli’s whole spiritual world view and should have been stopped at all costs for spreading such hysteria. Needless to say, Gemelli failed.
 
Thank you for that insight.
I cannot believe that professed religious people would take such a view towards the supernatural aspects of the faith. That is just horrifying and mind-boggling.
I’m glad Padre Pio’s ways prevailed. I do not want to belong to any church that wishes to base itself purely in earthly science. I don’t need a church for that.
 
The Church has long stated that mystical experiences, including stigmata, always relate a spiritual reality first and foremost. Physical attributes like the placement of the wounds may change depending upon the message God intends to impress upon the mystic. Take for example Our Lady of Guadalupe. Mary appeared as a Mayan. She wasn’t Mayan, but used the imagery to convey a message.

I guess the placement of the wounds in the palms of Christ has more spiritual significance than the wrists.
 
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