Novena to St. Padre Pio

St. Pio of Pietrelcina (1887-1968), known universally as Padre Pio, was an Italian Capuchin Franciscan friar and one of the most extraordinary Catholic mystics of the twentieth century. Born Francesco Forgione in the small Italian village of Pietrelcina, he entered the Capuchins at fifteen and was ordained a priest in 1910. From 1918 — when he received the visible stigmata while praying before a crucifix in the choir of San Giovanni Rotondo — until his death in 1968, he bore the wounds of Christ on his hands, feet, and side for fifty years, the only canonized priest in Church history to have received the full stigmata. Padre Pio's gifts also included bilocation (being seen in two places at once, attested in multiple investigated cases), reading hearts in the confessional, and prophecy. He spent up to eighteen hours a day hearing confessions; pilgrims came from across the world to confess to him. He founded the Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza ('Home for the Relief of Suffering') hospital at San Giovanni Rotondo in 1956, which remains one of Italy's premier medical centers. He suffered repeated investigations by the Vatican during his lifetime — including a period of severe restrictions in the 1920s and again in the 1960s — but his sanctity was repeatedly vindicated. He died on September 23, 1968. Pope St. John Paul II beatified him in 1999 and canonized him on June 16, 2002, before an estimated 500,000 people in St. Peter's Square. The novena to Padre Pio is appropriate for: healing of any kind (especially from severe or prolonged illness — Padre Pio's intercession is associated with thousands of reported healings), spiritual direction or vocational discernment, the conversion of distant family members, and any situation in which a soul needs the accompaniment of a powerful intercessor who himself bore great suffering for the salvation of others.