Saint Pius of Pietrelcina
Priest and Mystic · 1887–1968
“Pray, hope, and don't worry. Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer.”
Attributed to Padre Pio, from his letters and spiritual direction
Most people know him as Padre Pio, the Capuchin friar from southern Italy with the stigmata. But strip away the mystical phenomena for a second and you still have one of the most remarkable priests of the twentieth century: a man who spent up to eighteen hours a day in the confessional, who wrote letters full of warmth and humor, and who genuinely loved the people who came to him.
Francesco Forgione was born in 1887 in Pietrelcina, a small town in the Campania region of Italy. He entered the Capuchin Franciscans as a teenager and was ordained a priest in 1910. Almost immediately, his health started failing. He was sent to the friary of San Giovanni Rotondo in 1916, and he would spend the rest of his life there.
In 1918, he received the visible stigmata, the wounds of Christ's Passion, on his hands, feet, and side. He bore them for fifty years. The Church investigated him repeatedly, sometimes skeptically, and he submitted to every examination with patience. He wasn't trying to prove anything. He just kept showing up to say Mass, hear confessions, and pray.
He founded a hospital called the House for the Relief of Suffering, which still operates today. He died on September 23, 1968, just days after the fiftieth anniversary of receiving the stigmata. Pope John Paul II, who had met him personally as a young priest, canonized him in 2002.
He wasn't a theologian or a bishop. He was a confessor. And sometimes that's exactly what the world needs.