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."
There was a disastrous thread a month of two ago which was posted as a Caucus thread, and when Alaric and the Goths came in and began pillaging and burning the city and we responded the Admin Moderator pulled the Caucus designation!
So I pulled my pledge -- for a while.
No. I am in Love now and out of Love I will not go.
Just for the record, I won’t be praying to St Xzins either....
I’m sure you’ll understand.
Mrs. Don-o: “On what authority do you say that your personal opinion trumps all the centuries of Christian belief and practice?”
You better be careful, the same was said in defense of slavery and women’s rights....
Using precedent and historical tradition as a guide CAN be useful but certainly is not the fundamental basis for belief!
Here's the first one that comes up on Google:
http://www.padrepio.com/app7.html
A Prayer to Padre PioNot the greatest prayer IMHO but there it is.Beloved Padre Pio, today I come to add my prayer to the thousands of prayers offered to you every day by those who love and venerate you. They ask for cures and healings, earthly and spiritual blessings, and peace for body and mind. And because of your friendship with the Lord, he heals those you ask to be healed, and forgives those you forgive.
Through your visible wounds of the Cross, which you bore for 50 years, you were chosen in our time to glorify the crucified Jesus. Because the Cross has been replaced by other symbols, please help us to bring it back in our midst, for we acknowledge it is the only true sign of salvation.
As we lovingly recall the wounds that pierced your hands, feet and side, we not only remember the blood you shed in pain, but your smile, and the invisible halo of sweet smelling flowers that surrounded your presence, the perfume of sanctity.
Padre Pio, may the healings of the sick become the testimony that the Lord has invited you to join the holy company of Saints. In your kindness, please help me with my own special request: (mention here your petition, and make the sign of the Cross).
Bless me and my loved ones. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
I don't think a verse like this ("...there are NONE righteous, no, not one...") is conclusive in itself, because the Bible also has passages like this:
Genesis 6:9
This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people
Psalm 141:5
When a righteous man strike mes —that is a kindness...
Matthew 1:19
Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man...
2 Peter 2: 7-9
... and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)—
Plus Enoch and Elijah apparently never died, which makes one wonder whether they sinned, since the wages of sin is death...
Should the Bible have said, "For none are righteous EXCEPT Mary, Noah, the Psalmist's friend, Joseph, Lot, Enoch, Elijah...."??
I mention all this not to "prove" that they weren't sinners, but in order to illustrate the fact that these apparently contadictory passages cannot be resolved by proof-texting alone, but need a more complex interpretation.
As to Mary's sinlessness, if you're sincerely interested I can address that by referring you to this rather long Internet site --- suitable for several days' study (!!) --- but your question deserves a comprehensive answer.
Short answer: the Angel greeted her by a name or title never applied to any human being before or since: Full of Grace ("gratia plena": the Churches that do speak Greek call her "panagia," which means all-holy, which is equivalent to "gratia plena")---
And you know that when a person gets a new name from God, that always means something big: a special gift from God alone. "He who is mighty has done great things for me."
Beautiful!
Did you catch this week's broadcast of the Journey Home on EWTN? Grodi's guest was Fr. Eric Bergman, also a former Episcopal priest. The program will repeat on Saturday evening at 11pm. He arrived with many from his congregation.
Fr. Eric Bergman
Ordination to the Priesthood
April 21, 2007
and here is the news article previously posted to Free Republic
Some of these Catholics on this forum are such whiners. You point out any kind of inconsistency and instead of giving an intelligent response they throw a hissy fit and ping the moderator.
From the title of this thread, I thought this was an "Anti-Catholic" thread about Pio the Carbolic Catholic. Stigmata... What a bunch of superstitious nonsense. What I find hilarious is how so many Catholics freely question the documented miracles in the Bible (such as the Six day creation, the flood, Jonah, the Exodus, the walls of Jericho, the extended day, the crossing of the Red Sea.... and yet if anyone dares to question whether or not some Saint's stigmata may have some natural explanation, they have a temper tantrum and cry to the moderator like you just ran off with their strawberry flavored pacifier.
Methodist???
Well, my stars, good to have some Wesleyans! I always ran into you in GRPL-type threads so I think I got the wrong impression of where you were coming from!
Honest question, just because I’m curious: before the crucifixion, where were the saved (e.g. Abraham, Moses, Elijah)?
This Catholic actually agrees with you.
Stigmata... What a bunch of superstitious nonsense. What I find hilarious is how so many Catholics freely question the documented miracles in the Bible (such as the Six day creation, the flood, Jonah, the Exodus, the walls of Jericho, the extended day, the crossing of the Red Sea.... and yet if anyone dares to question whether or not some Saint's stigmata may have some natural explanation, they have a temper tantrum and cry to the moderator like you just ran off with their strawberry flavored pacifier.
On the superstition stuff, let me tell you something. My mom went to see Padre Pio as a little girl in Italy....and the way she'd tell us about this intense smell of roses the second he walked out on the balcony would send shivers up your spine. There is no *way* she is lying about it. I was an agnostic for a long time, and at various times in my life I wondered whether the church piped in some kind of scent like that...but I never was satisfied by that explanation.
But let me say that I do absolutely agree with you about categorically doubting Biblical miracles and believing in modern ones. The position is logically inconsistent and asinine.
But I'll turn it right back around on you....how come is it, that you can believe that God would work miracles for the old Israel but not the new Israel? I think there's a little rationalism creeping into your own Christianity there.
Read in the Wesley boys in Seminary. Good stuff and needed in the C of E in those arid times of incipient Deism and hollow piety.
Mad: “With respect to asking for intercession, whether the person asked is on earth or in heaven is not to the point.”
I must disagree with your contention. The primary point I am making is not whether we should ask for intercession, but to whom we ask. That seems to me the fundamental question we must resolve. The point of WHETHER we should ask for intercessory prayer seems to be universally accepted.
The bigger question is to whom we should ask for intercession. If I were to ask a known satan worshipper to pray for me, I would get a significantly different outcome than asking my pastor to pray for me.
I disagree with most of the posts here that claim “prayers” to saints are not really “prayers” but requests for intercession (its all very semantical and twisted). Paul was not asking the risen saints for prayer in the referenced passage, he was asking for prayers from fellow soujourners in faith - those whose faith could be built up by prayer.
When you truly begin to understand the purpose for prayer, the idea of praying to the saints becomes non-sensical. Prayer is not a means of notifyig God about a problem that needs resolution - do you think God is not aware of your needs or troubles? Prayer is not a conjuring nor tour de force. We are not changing God’s mind when we pray nor are we breaking any news to Him. Prayer is our means for developing a closer relationship to the One we pray. It is also a special means by which God sanctifies us and takes our focus away from ourselves (which we so rarely do otherwise).
But not in the sense (which perhaps some mistakenly think) that He ceased to exist altogether or was somehow annihilated. He (His spirit) descended into the abode of the dead, which is in the book of Hebrews but dang, I couldn't find it (anybody help me?)
I believe God performs miracles all the time. I do not consider it a miracle when an image of Christ or Mary (whom we have no idea what they looked like) appears on a tree stump or a soap smear on a window. I don't see any purpose being served in someone imitating the wounds of Christ by having red stains on their hands or in statues bleeding. Those are not miracles. Those are illusions.
For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. (2 Peter 1:16 KJV)
It is because it would be absurd. There are exceptions to that verse based on other verses, and logic. One of the verses would be Rom 9:11. This is where the teaching of the Church helps guide us.
"The most holy Trinity--One God, and not true God unless three divine Persons...The only authentic and true Revelation of this one God is transmitted in a trinitarian way by Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture, and Magisterial teaching, no one of which can subsist without the other two. One true God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. One true revelation of the one true God: through Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture, and Magisterial teaching." - Fr. Corapi
This is what the Church believes.
Dear Dr Eckleburg, why should I prefer your interpretations to the interpretations of anybody else? Your opinions, well-founded as they may seem to you, differ from those of many millions, many millions of other believers, and here I include Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox, and for that matter, many Scripture-believing Jews.
So why should I prefer your Bible views and not those of so many others, equally intelligent and equally honest as yourself?
Oy.
If you can do so with brevity. (Not to be rude-— I can be pretty prolix myself, God knows -— but I have to wash the dishes.)
Right.
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