Pio, Padre (da Pietralcini) (1887-1968)
Pio, Padre (da Pietralcini) (1887-1968)
Italian friar of the Capuchin monastery of San Rotundo, near Foggia, with reputed powers of clairvoyance and precognition, who also demonstrated the stigmata (wounds of Christ) from 1915 onward. Born Francesco Forgione, he lived a simple life and was a sympathetic personality who did not seek public notice. Among the phenomena he demonstrated that have excited some parapsychologists are instances of apparent bilocation. The most notable example occurred in 1941 when his friend Monsignor Damiani died in far-off Urugary. On the evening of Damiani's death, the Cardinal Archbishop or Montevideo admitted a hooded Capuchin monk who Damiani testified before his death was Pio.
The phenomena surrounding Pio have been neither endorsed nor condemned by the official office of the church charged with the evaluation of such occurrences, but they have been widely accepted by the public. Pio has been the subject, especially since his death in 1968, of a large body of literature.
(See also Therese Neuman )
Sources:
Berger, Arthur S., and Joyce Berger. The Encyclopedia of Parapsychology and Psychical Research. New York: Paragon House, 1991.
Grosso, Michael. "Padre Pio and the Paranormal." Christian Parapsychologist 4, no. 7 (1982).
Schug, J. A. Padre Pio. Huntington, Ind.: Our Sunday Visitor, 1976.