Word: pio
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Such was the situation in the moun tain town of San Giovanni Rotondo, not far from Foggia in southeastern Italy. Here was a shrine to a saint who was not only popular but who provided the extra added attraction of being alive as well. Padre Pio was not officially a saint; to qualify for sainthood, one must be dead and have been responsible for at least four unchallenged miracles. But one day in 1918, the Capuchin friar looked at his hands and what he saw terrified him so that he fainted; the frightened monks who came to help crossed themselves...
Pilgrims arrived every day by the hundreds. Hotels sprang up. A hospital, Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza, was built with the help of $400,000 raised by New York's Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. In the piazza outside the church where Padre Pio said Mass and heard confessions, hand-painted tiles bearing the padre's bearded face and other tasteless souvenirs were on sale...
...goings on were even more tasteless. When the doors were opened at 4:45 a.m., there was a stampede of pilgrims-three-fourths of them women-for the choice pews. These, however, had been chained and locked off by a group known as the Spiritual Daughters of Padre Pio-a shrewish ladies' auxiliary made up of the wives and relatives of local big shots who defended their squatters' rights...
Doctrine & Syllabus. Pio Nona's liberalism did not last long. In 1848, Roman civic leaders, furious that he would not consider war with Austria, assassinated his Prime Minister and set up a "people's republic." Pius fled to exile in Gaeta, near Naples. There he denned, on his own authority, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. When French troops restored him to his dominions in 1850, Pius IX was a cautious political conservative. Much of his suspicion of modern ideas is summed up in the notorious Syllabus of Errors of 1864-a belligerent denunciation of such...
Because he so strongly resisted the ideas and political trends of the 19th century, Pio Nono has seemed to many historians to be a relic of medieval times. Yet many Catholic scholars defend his courage, if not his wisdom, and regard him as the founder of the modern papacy. Pope John XXIII regards Pius IX as "an admirable shepherd," whose beatification will be an appropriate symbol of the aims of the Council...