Hi All,
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=489428&in_page_id=1811
An Italian monk who became the country's best-loved saint after being
canonised by Pope John Paul II and who claimed to suffer stigmata or the wounds
of Christ was a fake who used carbolic acid, according to a controversial new
book.
Padre Pio, who died in 1968 and who was canonized in 2002, claimed to have
first suffered the stigmata holes in his hands and feet where nails pierced
Christ at the Crucifixion since he was a young priest aged 24. He enjoyed a
massive following with thousands visiting him and even today nearly 30 years
after his death he has a millions of devotees around the world and he is
especially popular with Italian celebrities such as Sophia Loren and Andrea
Bocelli. However a new book called "The Other Christ: Padre Pio and the Italy
of the 19th Century" by historian Sergio Luzzatto claims that the wounds were
self created using carbolic acid and he claims to have found documentary
evidence to prove it in the Vatican's secret archives. A letter he has
discovered from a pharmacist called Maria De Vito, 28, who had made a
pilgrimage in 1919 to see Padre Pio at his monastery at San Giovanni Rotondo
near Foggia, southern Italy. In the document Maria wrote: "I was an
admirer of Padre Pio and met him for the first time in July 1919. I was there
for a month and had the opportunity to see him close hand several times and I
always had an excellent opinion of him.
"The eve of my departure for Foggia, Padre Pio called me to one side and in
great secrecy and asking me not to tell his fellow brothers gave me personally
an empty bottle he asked me to act as a chauffeur take 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 and he also asked
for other medicines such as Valda tablets." The document added that a month
later a further request arrived from Padre Pio in which he asked for four grams
of veratrine (painkiller) which was not available in her pharmacy so she asked
her cousin who refused because he feared it was being used for faking his
stigmata. The book highlights that the testimony was presented to the Vatican
by the local archbishop Pasquale Gagliardi who was an enemy of Padre Pio and
who always suspected that the wounds were self inflicted with acid and then
perfumed with cologne. However the Vatican dismissed
the documents after carrying out their own investigations which ruled that the
wounds were not caused by "external forces." The Catholic Anti-Defamation
League have hit back at the author of the book, historian Sergio Luzzatto,
saying: "We would like to remind Mr Luzzatto that according to Catholic
doctrine, canonisation carries with it papal infallibility."
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