00 16/08/2009 19:21




First posted 6/21/09 in the BENEDICT thread:


Pope’s visit to Padre Pio
will inspire greater closeness
to Christ, says Capuchin rector




Rome, Italy, Jun 20, 2009 (CNA).- On the eve of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the tomb of Padre Pio, Brother Francesco Dileo, Rector of the Shrine of Our Lady of Graces (Santa Maria delle Grazie), where the Pope will celebrate Mass this Sunday, said his visit will encourage the faithful to imitate the saint from Pietrelcina and thus follow Christ with more devotion.

In an interview with L’Osservatore Romano, the rector noted how “Padre Pio once said, ‘I will make more noise dead than alive.’ And in fact, the number of pilgrims is much higher compared to the end of 1968,” with some seven million visiting the shrine annually.

Speaking about the number of faithful who come to San Giovanni Rotondo to pray to the saint for a miracle, Brother Dileo said he receives an enormous amount of letters from people praying for Padre Pio’s intercession.

The letters are directly addressed to Padre Pio, “as if he were still alive, to ask for some physical or spiritual healing,” the brother said.

“I am firmly convinced that the grace of God that touches the hearts of men and makes the faith blossom and be reborn continues to work in this place, even after the death of Padre Pio,” he said. “I think it is difficult to encounter the life of this saint without sensing a desire to renounce sin and change one’s conduct.”

Referring to Pope Benedict XVI’s visit tomorrow, Brother Dileo said, “The picture of Benedict XVI in prayer in front of the remains of our beloved brother saint will certainly be more eloquent than many words.”



It is a significant coincidence that soon after inaugurating the Year for Priests, the Holy Father is making a pilgrimage to a saint who was a legendary priest widely recognized for his saintliness while he was alive.

Today's issue of OR carries an interview with a young Capuchin in San Giovanni Rotondo who says that in many ways, Padre Pio was like the Cure of Ars. I will try to translate it as soon as I can. My problem is that there is a flood of excellent material on Padre Pio that has come out in the Italian media the past few days, so I must choose what I can realistically have the time to translate.




Here's the official poster for the Pope's visit:



www.papadapadrepio.info/papa_san_giovanni_rotondo_interna.php?...


Here's a good pre-visit situationer from Vatican Radio:


The Pope's visit to San Giovanni Rotondo
Translated from
the Italian service of


June 20, 2009



San Giovanni Rotondo is in ferment for the arrival tomorrow of Benedict XVI who will visit the important sites in the life of St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, seven years after he was canonized.

It is the second visit by a Pope, after that of John Paul II. And it is Benedict XVI's third visit to the Puglia region, having been to Bari in May 2005 and to Leuca and Brindisi in June 2008.

Some 30,000 pilgrims are expected to line the 4-kilometer route of the Popemobile through the city.

Preparations are impressive and the joy and anticipation is great among the people of Puglia and the Franciscan Capuchins who are in charge of the Padre Pio shrine and sites.

Correspondent Denora Donnini has this report:

A bright sun and a gentle breeze make the climate in San Giovanni Rotondo quite pleasant as it awaits Peter, the Pope who comes here tomorrow for a visit to the town where Padre Pio exercised his mission as a Franciscan monk and where he died in 1968.

More than 30,000 pilgrims are expected, and 550 policemen and firemen will keep order. The visit will certainly leave an impression on this town as did the visit of John Paul II in 1987, who would canonize Padre Pio 15 years later.

In fact, John Paul II, as a bishop in Cracow, had a personal correspondence with Padre Pio in which he asked him to intercede for the health of friends.

In 1962, Bishop Wojtyla wrote him to pray for a friend who had been diagnosed with cancer. Eleven days later, he wrote a second letter to thank him because the woman was miraculously healed. [This was Dr. Wanda Poltawska who was in the news recently because she published a book recalling her rirendship and correspondence with Karol Wojtyla over a pereiod of 55 years.]

Karol Wojtyla actually met Padre Pio in person in 1948 when he was a young priest. He came to San Giovanni Rotondo in 1978 after Padre Pio's death as a cardinal.

Anticipation and joy radiate from the faces of the Capuchin brothers of the convent here, the many pilgrims, and the doctors, personnel and patients of the Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza (House of relief from suffering), the hospital started by Padre Pio in 1956 with 250 beds, and which is now one of Europe's best tertiary (specialized) hospitals with 1200 beds, a center for genetic studies, and a research center to study rare diseases.

Tomorrow, Benedict XVI will have time for everyone. First he will visit Cell #1 where Padre Pio died, in the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, and then he will pray before the saint's mortal remains which have been on public exposition in the church crypt since last April after it was exhumed from his grave in the church itself.

The Pope will light two 'eternal flames' to symbolize the two papal visits to the shrine.

Then he will celebrate Mass and lead the Angelus in the vast piazza in front of the Church of San Pio, built by architect Renzo Piano and inaugurated in 2004.

In the afternoon, he will inaugurate the mosaic scenes from the lives of Jesus, St. Francis and Padre Pio created by artist Marko Rupnik, a Jesuit priest, for the crypt of the new church.

During the Mass, the Pope will receive a commemorative medallion of the visit from Matteo Pio Colella, who, as a boy, had been miraculously cured of fulminating meningitis through Padre Pio's intercession - the miracle that led to his canonization.

In the afternoon, the Pope will visit the Casa di Rilievo and then meet with the clergy, religious, seminarians and young people at the Church of Padre Pio.

It will be a very significant visit by a Pope to one of the great contemporary saints who has much to say to man today.

The visit will be "an exhortation to Christians to grow in their education in the faith, not to stop in contemplation of a great saint or hoping for miracles, but to learn to be witnesses to Christ, as Padre Pio was all his life", according to Antonio Belpiede, spokesman of the Capuchins' monastic province in Foggia.


What is the relevance of Padre Pio today in a world that is too rationalistic, nihilistic and skeptical? He always underscored the importance of backing up the announcement of Christ and his message with charity.
The world has an order that comes from God's love, and the history of man has its own order. Even children know the formula for water - as if to say that the important elements of life are simple. Christianity is simple and it is always the same: love for God means love for our brothers.

Padre Pio admirably expressed this love in total abandon to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, to the embrace of the Trinity, but never taking his eyes off from his people, never forgetting about the poor and the suffering,

One can only love truly by loving God and one's fellowmen - that is Christianity, that is the simple formula of our faith.


Padre Pio also experienced in his own body the wounds that Christ suffered on the Cross. Why is that?
St. Paul aays in his letter to the Philippians: "We have been given the privilege not only to believe in Jesus Christ but also to suffer for him". And then he wrote to the Colossians, as someone who had profound experience of pain: "I complete in my flesh what Jesus Christ suffered for his Body which is the Church".

Padre Pio was chosen by the Lord to be an icon of his Son the tEernal Priest, who was crucified for love of mankind. And it is true that there is no greater love than to give one's life for those we love.


We spoke to Dr. Lucia Miglionico, pediatric oncologist (cancer specialist) at the Casa di Sollievo, on how the sick children were prepared for the visit.

Dr. Miglionico: They are all extremely happy about the Pope's visit. Besides the preparations they have worked on with their teachers - prayers, streamers, flyers - we also prepared them for a possible meeting with the Pope. Some of them cannot leave the ward, but they will be able to follow the visit on TV. And those of them who will be out there to meet the Pope will carry with them the prayer intentions of those who are left in bed.


You are in chazge of a department that has children of all ages struck with cancer or tumors. So you and your staff are in constant contact with the suffering of innocents. How do you help them through their ordeal in the light of faith?
St. Pio made it clear that everyone who works here cannot be concerned only with physical healing of the body, but to accompany all our work with prayer, in prayer, to consider even this as a mission of evangelization.


Debora spoke to two children who will be among those meeting the Pope in the atrium of the hospital, and asked them what they expected.

Carmela: Much hope certainly. Also a lot of confidence, because we hope that with the help of the Pope, with his prayers, our own prayers may be heard better 'above'. And we hope we will gain more strength, more resolve, to overcome illness. I will ask the Pope to pray for our parents and relatives who suffer with us.

Romeo: I see in all the children a lot of hope, as Carmela rightly said. Since I am Romanian, I also think the Pope is a hero who fights against racial prejudice.


Do you feel helped by your faith?
Romeo: Yes, certainly, I feel personally that the Church is behind me.


This poster describes the spiritual preparation led by the diocese in the week preceding the Pope's visit:



The schedule shows daily Masses adn prayer eocnounters, capped by a 'monumental' Via Crucis and massive prayer vigil at the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie Saturday night:



[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 16/08/2009 22:59]