St. Pio of Pietrelcina (1887-1968), universally called Padre Pio, was a Capuchin friar who bore the stigmata for fifty years at San Giovanni Rotondo in Apulia. He was canonized by John Paul II in 2002.
Life
Padre Pio arrived at the friary of Our Lady of Grace at San Giovanni Rotondo in 1916 and lived there for fifty-two years. On the morning of 20 September 1918 he was praying before a life-size seventeenth-century wooden crucifix in the choir of the old church when he received the wounds. No priest in the history of the Church had borne the stigmata before, and Rome answered with suspicion: a decree of the Holy Office on 31 May 1923 condemned the phenomena and restricted his public ministry, a restriction Pius XI later revoked. He asked for a hospital, and the House for the Relief of Suffering opened on 5 May 1956, two hundred and fifty metres from the friary, paid for by donations sent to him from around the world. He said his last Mass on 22 September 1968 and blessed the first stone of the monumental Way of the Cross on the hillside behind the friary the same day. He died the following morning at about half past two.
Feast Day
September 23 - the Feast of Saint Pio of Pietrelcina, the day of his death. September 20 is kept in memory of the wounds received in the choir of the old church in 1918. On the centenary in 2018 the crucifix of the stigmata was carried from that choir to the new church and placed beside the saint''s body.
Relics
His body rests in the Sanctuary of Saint Pio of Pietrelcina at San Giovanni Rotondo. The cell where he died on 23 September 1968 is kept as he left it, with his bed and his books.
Where the devotion is kept
San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy - the friary, the two churches and the sanctuary that holds his body. Pietrelcina, Italy - his birthplace.
Sources
Written from the Destinationes guide to San Giovanni Rotondo (site/content/places/italy/san-giovanni-rotondo/en/content.md), which carries the sourced account of the stigmata, the friary, the hospital and the feasts.
