Posted on 10/25/2007 9:24:05 AM PDT by NYer
The Other Christ: Padre Pio and 19th Century Italy, by the historian Sergio Luzzatto, draws on a document found in the Vatican's archive.
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The document reveals the testimony of a pharmacist who said that the young Padre Pio bought four grams of carbolic acid in 1919.
"I was an admirer of Padre Pio and I met him for the first time on 31 July 1919," wrote Maria De Vito.
She claimed to have spent a month with the priest in the southern town of San Giovanni Rotondo, seeing him often.
"Padre Pio called me to him in complete secrecy and telling me not to tell his fellow brothers, he gave me personally an empty bottle, and asked if I would act as a chauffeur to transport it back from Foggia to San Giovanni Rotondo with four grams of pure carbolic acid.
"He explained that the acid was for disinfecting syringes for injections. He also asked for other things, such as Valda pastilles."
The testimony was originally presented to the Vatican by the Archbishop of Manfredonia, Pasquale Gagliardi, as proof that Padre Pio caused his own stigmata with acid.
It was examined by the Holy See during the beatification process of Padre Pio and apparently dismissed.
Padre Pio, whose real name was Francesco Forgione, died in 1968. He was made a saint in 2002. A recent survey in Italy showed that more people prayed to him than to Jesus or the Virgin Mary. He exhibited stigmata throughout his life, starting in 1911.
The new allegations were greeted with an instant dismissal from his supporters. The Catholic Anti-Defamation League said Mr Luzzatto was a liar and was "spreading anti-Catholic libels".
Pietro Siffi, the president of the League, said: "We would like to remind Mr Luzzatto that according to Catholic doctrine, canonisation carries with it papal infallibility.
"We would like to suggest to Mr Luzzatto that he dedicates his energies to studying religion properly."
Talking to the dead is doing what Christ did. Is He a witch?
Scripture has LOTS
of biting satire.
Reason and historical facts don’t seem to have any impact.
Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her, and may her soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, rest in peace. Amen.
We are one body. We are the Body of Jesus Christ. Those in heaven, those in purgatory and those of us on earth work together and support each other just as each organ of a human body benefits the whole body. If something is wrong with one part of the body the rest of the body reacts. If you don’t believe this, ask yourself the following questions the next time you accidentally hit your thumb with a hammer. Why are my eyes tearing? Why has my respiration changed? Why do I feel nauseous? Do I look stupid sucking my thumb?
We pray directly to Jesus but also ask the saints - our friends - for their assistance. Imagine wanting to help someone who did not want your help. Imagine watching your friend become dejected because he couldn't find what he was looking for when all the time you could help him; except he never came to you. We're just one big family :-)
Re-read 1 Tim 24-26 and get back to me.
Reason and historical facts don’t seem to have any impact.
I've noticed that myself. This thread is a fine example.
My mom, my pastor, my friend - are all able to be talked to by me, right now, on the earth, and they can even talk back to me.
I don’t talk to people who’s bodies are not animated at the present time (ie they are no longer inhabiting their mortal coil, and have not yet been reunited with it). They may be alive with Christ in Heaven, but we have no direct contact with them. As we have Christ as our one true mediator, there really is no need to. We go to Him directly in prayer because He tells us to. We ask other living Christians on the earth with us right now to pray for us if we want to, because we see examples of this and we see where there is instruction to do so (ex. elders of the church visiting the sick and praying for them). What we do not see are examples of anyone teaching or promoting the idea of praying to dead Christians (absent from the body, present with the Lord), so that they in turn can take our prayers to God for us. There is nothing biblical about this. Paul never taught it.
The fact that the Church Universal is comprised of those Christians on the earth, and those that are physically dead but alive in Heaven with Christ, that does not mean we can communicate with them, nuch less ask them to intercede for us. First there is no Scripture to back this up. Second, though we may be part of the Church Universal, and bound together through Christ, that doesn’t even mean we can with a prayer communicate to other living people if we don’t have the means to do so. We don’t even know everyone or earth or in heaven and we have no means to communicate with the dead, or many of the body of Christ on the earth. HAve you tried to get in touch with your brothers and sisters in China by name to aks them to pray for you? The ones who don’t have phone service or mail service?
What will convince me your point has Scriptual basis is to give me examples from the bible where Jesus or the Apostles teach that you can ask Christians who are no longer physically alive (but in heaven) to interceded on your behalf to God. Or to provide me examples of where Jesus or the apostles state that it is your choice to either to pray to God directly for what you need, or that you can also pray to a dead Christian and he or she will then take your prayer to God for you.
And please do not give me the examples of living people asking other living people to pray for them. It is not the same and you know it. If you believe it is the same, and you believe the dead can do things for you, then you must also believe that your dead Christian father can still pay your mortgage bill for you, and your dead Christian grandma can still bake cookies for you. You must believe that the next phone call you get could be from your dead friend. But they cannot, of course not, they are dead. They cannot do anything in the temporal/physical world, nor can they do anything FOR anyone anymore in the temporal/physical world. They could do many things for you when they were here and alive in the body, including giving you a phone call, baking cookies for you, or helping with the lawn work - even, if you asked them or wrote to them, to pray for you. This only works if they are actually here with you. Not if they are dead and no longer in the body.
Christ can be our mediator and we can pray to Him because He is ALIVE. He died, and was risen to life immortal. We do not pray to a dead person when we pray to Christ! Christ is Risen! Amen.
Dear tiki,
My condolences.
sitetest
The practice of conjuring up spirits, and asking a servant of God to pray for you is quite different and this should be obvious to most people. Let me ask you a question. Do you think Jesus is an abomination to the Lord? Jesus conversed with the Dead. No I don’t mean instances when he raised Jairus’daughter from the dead by saying, “little girl arise.”(Mark 5:41) or when he raised his friend Lazarus from the dead by shouting “Lazarus come forth” (John 11:44). I’m talking about the time He chatted with Moses and Elias at the Transfiguration.
Mark 9:4
And there appeared unto them Elias with Moses: and they were talking with Jesus.Elias is the Greek form of the name Elijah that translators used in the KJV of the New Testament if you aren’t sure who Elias is. The KJV of the Bible is the only version that uses Elias all others use Elijah. Now we know that according to Scripture Elijah was carried away in a fiery chariot. There is no evidence in scripture that tells us he died so we won’t even discuss him. But Scripture not only tells us that Moses died but we are even told his age at his death.
I believe what we are talking about is intercession. We ask them to intercede for us with Jesus.
The first time I heard about carbolic acid was in "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" where (IIRC) it was used for cleaning. It seems to be some strong stuff.
Maybe I miss the point of the original accusation, but purchasing carbolic acid does not seem to me to be necessarily "wrong" in any way. And the fact that Padre Pio died with no scars on his hands seems to argue strongly against a lifetime of carbolic acid abuse.
I just think the whole thing is a weak attempt at character assassination.
In other words, you ask for intercessory prayer because you see it being done in the Scriptures, but it nevertheless contradicts your theology.
Christ can be our mediator and we can pray to Him because He is ALIVE. He died, and was risen to life immortal. We do not pray to a dead person when we pray to Christ!
Again, the bottom line is that you don't really believe that the dead in Christ are as alive as he is, even though he says they are.
Jesus is not violating anything if He talks to the dead. Jesus is God. You write as if you do not even understand this simple Christian concept. Jesus cannot ever do anything wrong or that is against His Word (He is the Word in the flesh) and will never do anything that isnot in unison with the Father or the Holy Spirit.
Jesus has the power to bring the dead to life. He has the power to show that He is talking with Moses and Elijah, no doubt to whom He would have been able to talk to in Heaven anyway. Normal human beings do not have these powers. Normal human beings are told NOT to talk to the dead and to NOT get involved with those who do.
Certainly so, but I would also call it 'intense'.
So did the Apostles.
He has the power to show that He is talking with Moses and Elijah, no doubt to whom He would have been able to talk to in Heaven anyway. Normal human beings do not have these powers. Normal human beings are told NOT to talk to the dead and to NOT get involved with those who do.
Jesus was setting a bad example, and we shouldn't get involved with him?
Okay you want to get hung up on a definition to somehow justify talking to the dead.
Webster:
necromancy: conjuration of the spirits of the dead for purposes of magically revealing the future or influencing the course of events.
Encarta:
necromancy: 1. prediction using spirits: the practice of attempting to communicate with the spirits of the dead in order to predict or influence the future.
“INFLUENCING THE COURSE OF EVENTS.” What do you think you are trying to do with a prayer? You are asking for something from the dead (intercession/mediation), and trying to influence the course of events.
My most sincere condolences on your loss.
Just as Campion said, you fail to accept the fact that these faithful "dead" are actually alive in Christ.
When we pray to God for something, are we "trying to influence the course of events"? In a sense, we are doing that with certain prayers. None of these saints have any power of their own other than their prayer. God does the heavy lifting.
My condolensces, tiki. Rest assured of my prayers for you, her and all your family. May she rest in peace.
Okay. Was Jesus practicing necromancy at the Transfiguration?
Jesus, being God Almighty can talk to anyone He wants to. And they were face to face. He was not praying to them for intercession.
No New Testament saint or Old Testament saint prayed to the dead.
Once again, Jesus is the only mediator and intercessor between God and man. If you deviate from that, you are in error.
You Catholics are saying that praying to Jesus is to no effect. We have to get Mary or somebody else to ask Jesus to do something we are asking.
If you are in Christ, you don't need any other intercessor. Are you a child of God or not?
You're acting like Jesus doesn't care unless Mary asks Him so. That is blaspheme.
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