Padre Pio: a Christ in the 20th century

Gallimard Editions have just published, in an excellent translation, the book by Sergio Luzzatto published in Italy in 2007: Padre Pio, miracles and politics in the secular age. The author, professor of modern history at the University of Turin, is above all a specialist in the French Revolution. However, he regularly publishes studies relating to the culture and political symbols of the contemporary period. Among them, we can notably cite The Body of the Ducepublished in 1998, which studies the complex relationship of the new Italian republic to the body of Benito Mussolini, displaced several times, symbol of justice for some, of necessary forgiveness for others. Once again, Sergio Luzzatto is interested in contemporary Italy. In Padre Pioit tells the story of a Capuchin friar from southern Italy who saw the stigmata of Christ’s passion appear on his limbs. For fifty years, until his death in 1968, he lived in his monastery of San Giovanni Rotondo, where, despite the doubts of part of the Church, he was surrounded by a crowd of faithful. Finally beatified and canonized by John Paul IIPadre Pio is still the object of extraordinary devotion today.

In this work, the author conducts a study on holiness in the contemporary world, the status of stigmata in the era of modern medicine and wants to show that the one who today forms a consensus within the Catholic Church has not not always had the confidence of it. Sergio Luzzatto does not seek to comment on the supernatural or fanciful character of the stigmata of Padre Pio, but rather to rigorously study the problems that holiness poses to the XX^e century. He thus claims a double methodological filiation: that of anthropologists, who renounce “ distinguish reality from legend ”, and that of the medievalists, “ by nature, agnostic “.

For this, the author relies on a substantial corpus, seeking both to define the position of the Catholic hierarchy through the documents of the Vatican, and particularly of the Congregation of the Holy Office, and to grasp the manifestations of popular devotion thanks to the letters sent to Padre Pio. He also carries out rigorous work based on expert reports commissioned by the Church, hostile pamphlets from Christians and atheists alike, and multiple hagiographic stories.

Holiness in XX^e century

Sergio Luzzatto strives to define the figure of the saint XX^e century with stimulating comparisons with the saints of the Middle Ages, and in particular with the other great stigmatized, Saint Francis, highlighting certain striking analogies. He also compares the miraculous healings of Padre Pio with the thaumaturgical stories of Marc Bloch, noting similarities and even going so far as to find “ a collective mentality with similar structures “.

The book clearly shows the importance of Pio in the history of stigmata: it is the first time that they appear on the body of a minister of God. While Saint Francis had never been led to celebrate the Eucharist, Padre Pio multiplied the significance of the latter with his bloody hands. Because the Catholicism of XX^e century continues to rely on the predominance of gesture, these stigmata have an extraordinary impact. The stories which accompany this episode of holiness are then both hagiographic and evangelical, Padre Pio constituting, through his stigmata, a sort ofAlter Christus.

The Vatican’s reluctance

Writing the story of Padre Pio also means retracing forty years of internal clashes within the Catholic Church. Indeed, the work clearly highlights the strong reluctance of the ecclesiastical hierarchy regarding this new saint of Mezzogiornobut also the many supports that Padre Pio has in the Church. As in the Middle Ages, two major questions arise for the Vatican, one theological, the other relating to its authority. First, is it possible to admit the existence of another Christ without recognizing that the passion of Jesus Christ was incomplete ? Then, popular recognition of holiness poses a problem: only the Vatican can decide on the holiness of an individual. Recognizing a saint proclaimed by the faithful would amount to undermining the foundations of his authority. This is all the tension that we find in the story of Padre Pio.

The author details the hesitations of the Catholic hierarchy faced with the scale of the phenomenon. His work also dwells at length on the years preceding the Second World War, that is to say the period of distrust of the Vatican towards the Capuchin. Sergio Luzzatto thus shows that for several years, the Church sought to isolate or even displace Padre Pio and even prohibited him, from 1931 to 1933, from celebrating mass and confessing the faithful. The appearance of the stigmata in 1918 was not enough to make Padre Pio a saint. It took almost thirty years for the Church to accept him within its ranks and even in the following period, their relationship was far from idyllic.

Thus after the parenthesis favorable to Padre Pio which constituted the pontificate of Pius XIIJeans XXIII again seems particularly skeptical and even describes it, in one of his private writings, “ (of)tow idol “. But during this period, the figure of the saint, known in Italy and outside, now escapes the Vatican which can no longer influence it as much as before. From then on, Padre Pio was gradually integrated into the Vatican cult system. This movement ended in 1999, when Pope John Paul IIwho himself, as a young seminarian, had visited the saint, decided on his beatification.

Miracle and politics

The author also strives to determine the political events that may have benefited Padre Pio. It thus appears that in the extremely deleterious climate of biennio rossothe latter received the support of veterans opposed to the socialist municipality. Having become one of their symbols in the region, he was even denounced as an agitator in the Chamber of Deputies by the Italian socialists during the debates following the massacre of fourteen of them in the very town of Padre Pio, San Giovanni Rotondo , in 1920.

Writing a methodical history of clerical-fascism, Sergio Luzzatto clearly shows how the Capuchin benefited from the rapprochement of the Italian State and the Church, more than half a century after the tearing of Italian unity. This political support was even more obvious after the war: the funds intended to build the gigantic San Giovanni hospital came partly from private donations, but also from the United Nations and the Marshall Plan. The Christian democracy then in power, in political competition with the Communist Party, thus sought to favor projects strongly marked with the seal of Catholicism.

One of the merits of the book is to retrace the itinerary of the few faithful who gravitated around the figure of the saint and organized his notoriety. These are both Capuchins who understand well the interest that the order can draw from it, faithful who left their families to live near the monastery, or intriguers, at the forefront of whom Sergio Luzzatto places Emanuele Brunatto, recognized today by the faithful as “ the man who saved Padre Pio » of oblivion – named after a book dedicated to him in the early 2000s. The author shows the way in which Emanuele Brunatto, at the same time entrepreneur, fascist spy in Paris and specialist in the black market, uses very early on the figure of Padre Pio while promoting himself. It was he who launched the collection for the construction of his hospital, personally contributing significantly. If it seems overall, following the numerous reports from the Holy Office, to exempt Padre Pio from any venality – despite the lifting of his vow of poverty by the Pope to allow him to personally manage his hospital – Sergio Luzzatto clearly highlights the galaxy of intermediaries who organized and profited from the growing notoriety of the saint while promoting the growth of his cult following the Second World War.

This book thus has the advantage of offering an outside point of view on Padre Pio, beyond the many hagiographies that were written in the 1930s. It clearly shows how the obscure figure of a Capuchin of the Mezzogiorno could have sunk into oblivion because of the condemnation of the Congregation of the Holy Office, and how it on the other hand imposed itself, thanks to favorable political events, to the belated support of a part of the Catholic hierarchy and to the determination of a nebula of faithful and intermediaries determined to take advantage of the windfall it constituted.

But it is above all through the rigorous deconstruction of what he calls the “ hagiographic method » that Sergio Luzzatto convinces the most, by emphasizing how the most relayed aspects, still today, of the saint’s personality – his mysticism, his sense of humor, his moral rigor – most often find their origin in the same texts, repeated and copied endlessly, until they became unassailable truths for the faithful of Padre Pio. The multiplication of occurrences being perceived as a multiplication of sources, these elements, sometimes doubtful, take on considerable importance. This process thus leads to “ pass for the history of holiness which in truth is only the memory of it “.