Was Padre Pio a psychic?

[Little_Flower]

Psychics are wrong and an affront to the First Commandement. Yet how do we distinguish between a Padre Pio or Rose of Lima, who could see the future, from an occult psychic? How do you know who has a gift from God and who is a pawn of Satan?

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

First of all, it is not necessarily “an affront to the First Commandement” to be able to see into the future, if the gift is a natural or supernatural ability that has not been sought after by the recipient. That is why it was not sinful for certain saints to foretell the future. The future was revealed to them by God. Here is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church has to say:

All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to “unveil” the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone (CCC 2116).

Because gifts from God are not dependent upon the personal holiness of the recipient, it is possible that non-saints have also at times been given the ability to see into the future. The way for ordinary Christians to avoid being deceived by charlatans is for them not to seek out those who claim to foretell the future and for them to treat any information offered them by someone who claims to have received it as an unapproved private revelation that is not binding upon anyone but the person who received it (presuming that it is a true revelation from God).