When the Saints get it wrong?

[civilwar]

I know someone who had a grandparent who use to be in contact with Padre Pio.
He told her something (quite important) about a member of her family’s future, but that didn’t come true.
How should a Catholic deal with something like that?
Did Padre Pio simply get it wrong? Did God have a plan for the person which they didn’t follow? Or what?

Thanks.

 

[Dorothy]

I know someone who had a grandparent who use to be in contact with Padre Pio.
He told her something (quite important) about a member of her family’s future, but that didn’t come true.
How should a Catholic deal with something like that?
Did Padre Pio simply get it wrong? Did God have a plan for the person which they didn’t follow? Or what?

Thanks.

We probably just don’t know “what”, and should just leave it in God’s hands.

Saints can and have been wrong about things, but not with the intention of being wrong. (If that indeed was the case.)

And, then again, I don’t know anything about what was said, or what was thought to have been said.

I would just let it go, thank the Lord for the sanctity of Padre Pio (he is a saint!), and thank our good Lord for He alone is perfect.

Peace!

Dorothy

 

[maryjk]

Saints get it wrong all the time.

Being named a saint doesn’t say that they were perfect during their lives. It doesn’t mean that they never got things wrong. Or that they knew the future.

Padre Pio got it wrong because he was a human being, just like you are.

(I am kind of amazed that Padre Pio was trying to predict the future. Predicting the future takes away free will. Doesn’t seem like something a priest would do.)

 

[MarcoPG]

Since we don’t know what was the nature of what P. Pio said, we cannot know if this was a revelation or just an advice. BUt I woud say it certainly was no revelation, since it got it wrong. So it was maybe just an advice, or smething P. Pio thought personally would happen, but he wasn’t all-knowing.
Or, he said what he said for other reasons only God knows why.

Lastly, it may also be that the person in question misundertood, and what P. Pio said happened, but the person wasn’t aware of it.

 

[Mintaka]

Most prophecies from God, in the Bible and even today, are “conditional.”

Basically, if things keep going the way they are going, X will happen. X can be a good thing or a bad thing.

In general, God gives us free will. So if God sends Jonah to Nineveh to predict that Nineveh will be destroyed, God is hoping that people in Nineveh will listen, repent, and not have to be destroyed. Repenting changes the conditions, and a good thing happens instead.

It is also possible for God to ask a prophet to prophesy a good thing, hoping that the hearer of the prophecy will be encouraged by the good prediction to do good things. If any person involved doesn’t take the prophecy the right way, it changes the conditions and a bad thing (or even a different but less good thing) happens instead.

Finally, it is also possible to misinterpret a prophecy. God likes wordplay. If God has a prophet predict to me that I’ll always have plenty of meat until the end of my life; and I am a wicked person anyway, and then I mock God’s prophecy; it’ll serve me right if God kills me by smiting me with a side of beef, and I’m smooshed flat by “plenty of meat till the end of my life.”

Or it might be a good thing. Somebody might say, “God told me that Bob the atheist will become a Holy Father.” Well, what if Bob the atheist doesn’t become Pope, but he gets Baptized and becomes a good Catholic holy father of kids? The prophet might have been wrong about how to interpret what God told him, but the prophecy would still be literally correct.

Or somebody might say “Bob the atheist will become a priest.” Every baptized Christian is a priest, prophet, and king in a small way, so the prophecy wouldn’t be wrong; it would just have been fulfilled in a small way instead of a big Father Bob the parish priest way.

And of course, it just might not be fulfilled yet. If Bob the Catholic Dad’s kids grow up, his wife passes away, and he goes to seminary, he might yet become a parish priest or the Pope.

 

[MarcoPG]

Most prophecies from God, in the Bible and even today, are “conditional.”

Basically, if things keep going the way they are going, X will happen. X can be a good thing or a bad thing.

Other good point to keep in mind. That is, if we assume this was a prophecy.

 

[thistle]

I know someone who had a grandparent who use to be in contact with Padre Pio.
He told her something (quite important) about a member of her family’s future, but that didn’t come true.
How should a Catholic deal with something like that?
Did Padre Pio simply get it wrong? Did God have a plan for the person which they didn’t follow? Or what?

Thanks.

How do you know that what you were told is correct? How do you know that the person did not misunderstand the grandmother said? How do you know that the grandmother did not misunderstand what Padre Pio told her?

We cannot cannot questions based on hearsay.