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New Miracle for Padre Pio
 The Roman newspaper Il Messaggero reported that a study is now
underway concerning the scientifically inexplicable cure of a child who
claims to have seen Padre Pio in a dream. If this miracle is deemed genuine, it
will be the third and final miracle needed for the canonization of Padre Pio,
which could take place some time next year.
The reported miracle surrounds an eight-year-old boy from San Giovanni Rotondo, the town where Padre Pio lived for over 50
years
Matteo
Pio (his surname was not given for reasons of privacy) was stricken with
meningitis on January 20, 2001. His father, a doctor, placed him immediately in
the Home for the Relief of Suffering, the hospital founded by Padre Pio. The
boy's case was so severe that the doctor's initial diagnosis left no hope. The
boy was going to die.
Twelve days later, however, Matteo woke up in his hospital bed as
if nothing had happened. The doctors have not been able to explain this
phenomenon. The boy said that while he was in a coma he dreamed of Padre Pio
who smiled at him.
The case is now being studied by five doctors of the medical
commission of the Vatican Congregation for the causes of Saints. So far, the
cure is inexplicable.
If the commission's final judgment is favorable, the case will
then be studied by a theological commission, and later, by a commission of
cardinals and bishops of the Congregation.
If these two commissions confirm the direct
relationship between the cure and Padre Pio, then the miracle will be declared
worthy of being used for the canonization of Padre Pio.
The postulator of the
cause of Padre Pio's canonization has received two other cases of seemingly
miraculous cures that could be presented to request his canonization.
The first concerns
Giorgio Rinzivilo, 22, from Modica, Italy, who came out of what seemed an
irreversible coma, suffered as the result of an April, 1999 traffic
accident.
The
second is the case of Antonio Trabucco, a retired gentleman residing in Naples.
He was cured from partial paralysis in June, 1999.
Blessed Padre Pio
lived from 1887 to 1968. He was renowned for his many miracles, his legendary
fights with the devil, his being at two places at one time (bilocation), and
his ability to predict the future.
He also had the gift of reading souls in the
confessional, and to tell the penitents accurately the secret sins they had
failed to confess.
For 50 years, Padre Pio bore the mystical stigmata, the bleeding
wounds of Christ, on his hands, feet and side. He offered this suffering for
the salvation of souls. During the holy friar's lifetime, thousands of
Catholics flocked from all over the world to attend his Mass and receive from
him the Sacrament of Confession.
Padre Pio was beatified at the Vatican on May 2, 1999.
The event was attended by an estimated 200,000 people and was called "the most
popular beatification in history".
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