Chapter 11 of Pierced by Love: A Fictionalized Biography of St. Padre Pio

IMPRISONMENT

Chapter 11
1929–1944

Though Archbishop Gagliardi had taken a forced retirement, he had left behind him many priests and bishops who continued, out of jealousy and hatred, to propagate the lies about Padre Pio. Their reports reached the Vatican saying, “Padre Pio is possessed, and the friars of Our Lady of Grace in San Giovanni Rotondo are using his fame to make their fortune. Padre Pio uses makeup, and the friars put pomade on their hair. To make people think he has the ‘aroma of sanctity,’ Padre Pio douses himself with cologne every day, and we even have evidence that he keeps nitric acid in his cell to put on his hands, feet, and side to create the stigmata. In addition, he regularly has intimate relationships with some of the women who come to him for confession. His friars condone all of this and are, themselves, nothing but a pack of thieves, preying on the thousands of naïve and gullible pilgrims who travel from all over the world to see and hear their famous ‘holy saint’ whom we, in all due respect, declare to be anything but holy.”

One evening in the refectory while Pio shared a meal with his confreres, his friend Padre Peppino, seated next to him, leaned toward him and whispered, “Your enemies are accusing you of a lot of terrible things, but the worst is that you’re disobedient to your superiors.”

His friend’s statement pierced Padre Pio’s heart, causing him to almost faint from grief. He dropped his fork and barely noticed the clatter it caused as it bounced onto the plate and then onto the wooden table. Staring in disbelief at his friend, Pio struggled to force out the words, “How can they say that?”

Brushing a piece of freshly baked bread from his straw-colored beard, Peppino said, “Unfortunately they can say anything they want, my friend.” He glanced around the room crowded with tables full of friars eating. “Rest assured that no one here believes their lies.” Peppino focused his dark-blue eyes at Pio. “I especially do not believe them, my friend.”

Comforted not one bit by his friend’s attempt to ease his mind, Pio said, choking back tears, “You know, Peppino, that if my superiors told me to do it, I would even leave San Giovanni Rotondo and work at another friary of their choice just so that I would not be so much bother for everyone. For me, the voices of my Superiors and the Church represent the voice of God.” Tears blinded Pio, and he could no longer even think about eating. “Mi skusi, Peppino, I need to return to my cell.”

Five minutes later after trudging on swollen feet to his cell, Pio eased himself onto the chair at his small table and opened his Bible to the spot in the fourth chapter of the first book of St. Peter where Peter speaks about suffering. Dear Jesus, Pio prayed before beginning to read, so often when my enemies have persecuted me—as they continue to do so now—You have comforted and strengthened me with Your holy Word. Please again do so. With confidence in his God, Padre Pio read St. Peter’s words, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal which comes upon you to prove you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice in so far as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are reproached for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or a wrongdoer, or as a mischief-maker; yet if one suffers as a Christian, let him glorify God. . . . Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will do right and entrust their souls to a faithful Creator.”

Leaving the Bible open, Pio stood up, turned, hobbled ten steps toward his bed and knelt before the crucifix on the wall above it. Barely able to speak because of the tears that choked him, Pio whispered, “My Jesus, thank You for speaking to me through Your holy Word. You know that I have done nothing wrong to warrant the accusations hurled against me. Therefore, as St. Peter says, let me suffer according to God’s will. I entrust my soul to You, my faithful Creator, and You will never fail me.”

With Peppino’s news still fresh in his mind, and wincing from pains shooting upward from his wounded feet through his legs, Pio smiled through his tears. “You have answered my prayers, Jesus, and attached me to Your cross so that I can suffer with You, my Lord and my God.” Silently Pio repeated with St. Paul, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.” The church; God’s people; all His children; everyone; everywhere. “Yes, give me the pain, Lord, any kind of pain,” Pio whispered up at the cracked and peeling ceiling of his cell.

And the pain came.

Ignoring the splendors of spring in May of 1931, Padre Pio’s enemies’ stealth and deception finally won out over the seventy-four-year-old Pope Pius XI, and the Vatican issued an order of isolation to be applied to Pio. On June 11, along with the warm breezes blowing up from the Gulf of Manfredonia, the new Superior of Our Lady of Grace friary, Padre Raffaele received a mandate from the Holy Office. The Superior called Pio into his office and read the Vatican’s announcement to him. “Padre Pio will hereby be deprived of all his priestly faculties. He will hear no confessions and he will keep himself entirely away from the public. He will say Mass each day, but only within the friary’s private inner chapel and with none of the public present.”

Refusing to allow the new Superior to know of the agonizing darkness in which the Vatican’s decree had shrouded his heart, Pio straightened his back as much as possible, considering the great pain in his body, stoically stared at the Superior and said, “God’s will be done.” Then lowering his head and placing his gloved hands over his eyes, he added, “To me, the will of the Church and my superiors is the will of God. So it has always been, and so it will be until I die.”

As if struggling with his own emotions, Raffaele gently said, “Si, my son. I am well aware of your obedience and your sanctity. And I am well aware of the lies that have forced the Holy Father to condemn you to isolation. But please don’t worry; the Holy Office is a victim of cattivi e peccaminosi, bad and sinful people—but only for the moment. The Holy Father’s advisors have even listened to the mangiapreti, the vile ‘priest-eater,’ the rabid anticlerical faction which, unfortunately, permeates the Church throughout Italy and the world. But remember, my son, that Jesus is the Truth, and He will bring his Truth to light. So take heart, sei in grazia di Dio, you are in the grace of God.”

For weeks, Pio managed to hide the relentless grief stabbing his heart and soul. Even when questioned by his confreres about the Vatican’s decree, Padre Pio fought back tears and merely said, “God’s will be done.” But on July 1 when his dear friend Padre Agostino traveled the rough mountainous miles just to reach Pio, the latter collapsed into Agostino’s arms and cried, “I didn’t expect any of this to happen!”

As he had in November 1919, Agostino again made a prediction: “But you always pray for God’s will to be done, mio diletto, my dear friend, and you always trust Him, and He is always true to His promises, so you must now trust that He is in control, even of this most-agonizing of circumstances. How many times have I heard you tell me you’ve asked Jesus to nail you to the cross with Him? Hasn’t He done so with the Vatican’s decree?” Agostino helped Pio to sit in the nearest chair. “You must accept His will, just as you’ve always done.”

Through his tears, Pio could only look up in silence at his friend and spiritual director.

“You will see,” Agostino continued, “that God will bring great good out of all of this. It will be not only for His glory, but also for your good and the salvation of souls.”

Padre Pio shook his head in agreement, and for the next two long years—which he called his “imprisonment”—he offered up, in his isolation, all of his sufferings for God’s purposes and in response to the Mother of God’s plea at Fatima the year before Pio’s stigmatization. And as always, Pio’s soul continually prayed, Fiat voluntas tua. Thy will be done.

March of 1933 arrived, bringing with it the sounds of farmers tilling their fields, the tinkling of bells on the necks of the sheep and goats grazing near the friary, and the cacophony of voices of the hundreds of pilgrims who still swarmed up the mountain to be near their “saint,” even though the Vatican still kept Padre Pio isolated from them. Pio spent the long lonely hours in prayer, saying countless Rosaries every day. He studied Scripture and the Church Fathers, and his daily Mass sometimes lasted three or four hours since he didn’t have to worry about any impatient pilgrims and so he could remain in ecstasy for as long as God willed. But two years of too much time alone gave Padre Pio too much time to dwell on his perennial uncertainty of whether or not he pleased the Lord.

The Pope’s new secretary of state Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, who would one day become Pope Pius XII, convinced Pius XI to send a delegation to San Giovanni Rotondo to evaluate Padre Pio and the situation there. When the delegation reported to the Pope, they told him that the stigmatic was a humble, holy friar, always obedient to his superiors and the Church, and who was exactly the “saint” that his fedelissimi, his extremely devoted followers, claimed. In June, 1933, because of that report, the Pope removed from office one of the prelates closest to him who had, according to the report, been lying to Pius XI about Pio.

In July, the Vatican released Pio from his “imprisonment.” At age forty-six, his health had deteriorated. His feet and ankles were almost always badly swollen. Whenever he walked, he had to drag his aching feet as he struggled along. Trying to move quickly did no good; he felt old and tired from the time he woke up until he collapsed into bed at night for a few hours of fitful sleep. When an old friend came to visit him one day that summer, he said to Pio, “I’m worried about you, Padre. Since the last time I saw you, before Rome isolated you, you walk slower; you seem so stiff. Is it your wounds?”

“Si, yes, but it is God’s will, so don’t worry, my son.”

“But you’re so stooped over now, and I can see the pain in your eyes.”

Padre Pio just smiled and changed the subject, not wanting his friend to worry about him. Nevertheless, Pio knew that he’d never feel young again, but neither did he want to return to his youth, except in his thoughts when he recalled the joys of his childhood and family. Just this morning, when he briefly looked in the mirror as he washed his face and combed his beard, he noticed his face was fuller from the weight he had gained while in isolation; his hair had thinned and receded at the hairline; his beard, which he was wearing longer and fuller, was sprouting some grey hairs.

But nothing could keep Padre Pio from saying Mass every day. At 5 a.m. on July 16, 1933, while the newly budded daisies and the swallows slept in the garden, for the first time in two years Padre Pio appeared in public, inside the main church of Our Lady of Grace. As he plodded out onto the presbytery at the front, in spite of the packed church, a reverent hush fell over the crowd, broken only by the weeping of some who were overcome with gratitude to God for returning their Padre to them.

How did they all know I’d be here? Pio wondered as he gazed out at the interior of the church and saw that every square inch of floor and pew were taken up by worshippers, some kneeling in the aisle, some kneeling at their pews. The Provincial. Yes, he obviously hadn’t been able to keep it a secret. And now Pio couldn’t help but grin. I have no words with which to thank You, dear Jesus, for bringing me back to them. May You always reach out to them and minister to them through me, even beyond my death.

During that morning’s Holy Communion, the communicants, before receiving Jesus from Pio’s hand, would kneel and kiss the ground. With tears streaming down their faces, they would open their mouths and receive their Lord from the hands of their “saint.” Pio’s tears matched theirs, but still he had to remind some of them to “calm down; all is well now.”

After Mass, greeting the crowd in the corridor, Pio overheard a visiting priest from Bavaria say to someone, “When I saw Padre Pio remove his gloves and allow the blood to drip from his hands throughout Mass; when I heard his voice overflowing with love for God; when I saw his deep brown eyes, so intense and clear, focused solely on Christ in the Eucharist as he consecrated the bread and wine; when I saw the tears roll down the cheeks of his still-handsome face, I saw Jesus Christ Himself. Jesus had come to life again on earth through this holy man.” The Bavarian priest brushed the tears from his eyes, and in a voice hoarse with emotion continued, “I feel as if all my life I’ve been like the Apostle Thomas who doubted it was really Christ who had appeared to the disciples after the resurrection. All those years before today, had I really truly believed? I don’t know, but I do know that today I began to truly believe that Christ is alive, Christ has risen, Christ is working through this holy, saintly priest.”

Padre Pio had heard similar testimonies before, and he refused to allow the praise to effect him. Still, he felt he needed to say something to the priest, so gently he insisted, “Grazie, thank you, but I’m not a saint. And I deserve no thanks or praise. I’m just a poor friar who suffers and prays. Jesus is the Source of all goodness. He is Goodness itself.” Pio glanced upward and then back at the Bavarian. “Go now, my brother, and give your thanks to Jesus in the Tabernacle for what He has done for you in renewing your faith in Him.”

In spite of the Vatican’s release of Padre Pio from exile, trouble continued to haunt him. In 1939 World War Two brought its horrors of death, destruction of property, and horrific disruption of lives and governments. And one year before the war ended, a letter arrived at the friary for Padre Pio. The letter’s words grabbed hold of his heart and mind, threatening to squeeze the life out of them.

Pellegrina!
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