"He invited me to partake of his sorrows...": From the Foreword to "Padre Pio Under Investigation"

"He invited me to partake of his sorrows..." | Vittorio Messori | From the Foreword to Padre Pio Under Investigation: The Secret Vatican Files by Francesco Castelli | Ignatius Insight

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"The future will reveal what today cannot be read in the life of Padre Pio of Pietrelcina." These words, written in January 1922 by Msgr. Raffaello Carlo Rossi, Bishop of Volterra-Inquisitor in San Giovanni Rotondo by order of the Holy Office in June 1921, when Padre Pio was just thirty-four years old—were then certainly a way to "cover his back", and avoid locking in too small a cage a man and a situation which to the prelate, sent on a reconnaissance mission to evaluate the stigmatic friar and the environment around him, had seemed—as we shall see—certainly out of the ordinary, but also substantially healthy and sincere. But those words were, at the same time, too easy a prophecy.

When we read them now—with Padre Pio having been proclaimed a saint in 2002, after many disagreements and vicissitudes—we can't help smiling. We now know very well what the future has said about that friar, rich since childhood in extraordinary charisms, but also—and I would say necessarily—subjected to a special attention on the part of the Church, and to a severity that often seemed excessive.

And we know it because, despite his humility and his reserve, the mission to which he had been called had an enormous echo, crossing all borders and channeling millions of pilgrims toward San Giovanni Rotondo. An event which, however one may have judged it, had captured the attention of everyone, believers and non-believers, helping considerably to strengthen the faith of many.

We should then know practically everything about him, since much has been written, both at a scholarly level and for the general public. But it is not so, as this volume by historian Fr. Francesco Castelli demonstrates. The book collects and analyzes what the jargon calls the Votum (that is, the final report of Msgr. Raffaello Carlo Rossi's inquiry, conducted, as noted, on behalf of the Holy Office), and other shorter texts like the Chronicle of Padre Pio, written by one of his spiritual directors, Fr. Benedetto Nardella of San Marco in Lamis.

These are almost entirely unpublished texts, and they are of remarkable documentary value: Since they were declared classified at that time, they didn't appear among the sources in the archives of San Giovanni Rotondo, and for this reason they were ignored for a long time. But in 2006, as is well known, Benedict XVI gave free access to the archives of the former Holy Office up until the year 1939, making it possible at last to examine what the archives held on the subject of the friar from Pietrelcina. The consequence of all this was the revival of the seemingly inexhaustible research on this saint, who has been long-loved and at the same time, in some circles, so discussed and looked upon with arrogant diffidence. These past few years have seen the arguments—both in favor and against the stigmatic Capuchin—rekindle, arguments that had apparently died down with the canonization.

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