considerations of padre pio

In the 1960's shortly before his death, the Italian priest Padre Pio is supposed to have been asked whether the apocalypse was at hand.

He's supposed to have answered: "Can't you see the world is catching fire?"

It's occasionally difficult to separate myth from reality with regard to Padre Pio.

He might have said the above.

It sounds a bit like something he'd say.

A certain measured caution is advisable.

On the internet one finds a cottage industry in bogus claims of sayings attributed to Padre Pio. One such is a recurrent and (according to some who knew him) apparently untrue claim that Padre Pio predicted three days of darkness during ye aforementioned approaching apocalypse.

Separating truth from fiction is the order of the day in these sorts of cases.

I have been particularly intrigued by some interesting testimonies from Irish people relating to Padre Pio's supposed providential interventions or even posthumous appearances in supernatural circumstances.

One that got my attention was from a Mr Donald Enright who attended mass at Padre Pio's monastery in the 1970's ten years after the Padre's death and claimed to have seen Padre Pio appear on the altar during the service along with an image of the crucifixion and a sky filled with stars.

I'd do my best to be open minded about his testimony but, er, it's not easy.

Firstly I would have to ask if there was a possibility someone had slipped him an LSD tablet.

An hallucinogen might reasonably be expected to induce religiously themed hallucinations in a religiously minded person.

We come to that question if we don't think he's lying.

After that we must consider the possibility he's telling the truth, ie that he's not a drugged up eejit.

There was a purported fellow witness with him who claimed to see the same supernatural phenomena by the way.

That person is my number one postulated suspect for slipping him the hallucinogen if any hallucinogen was being slipped.

Another testimony that caught my eye is that of Gemma Dillon who in the 1980's accepted a request to assist a priest in translating some notes about Padre Pio for a book. The priest warned her to be careful as two other people had attempted the translation and both had experienced unfortunate events afterwards.causing them to abandon the project. Gemma Dillon pooh poohed the priests concerns.

On the night she received the notes, she woke after midnight with a premonition of evil. Within a quarter of an hour there was an attack on her house by a terrorist faction which was rampaging around the country during that period.

A group of men burst in, roughed her up, shot her husband and killed their dog. Her husband was not expected to live but in fact did survive.

The implication in Gemma Dillon's story is that something evil does not want the world to know that God sent a great Saint to the earth in Padre Pio.