THE EARLIEST RECORDS DO NOT SAY JESUS GAVE PIO THE STIGMATA
Did Jesus in a vision give his crucifixion wounds to devotee Padre Pio? Let us look at a Catholic source. Padre Pio Under Investigation is a great book on the subject.
QUOTE: "Until today, it was believed Padre Pio had never revealed to anyone what happened on September 20, 1918, the day he received the stigmata. A brief mention was made in a letter to his spiritual director, Father Benedetto, but on this point the Capuchin revealed almost no detail. He had only talked about a what he termed as "a mysterious person" who had given him the stigmata. According to some scholars, Padre Pio didn't know his identity."
COMMENT: Three years later Pio is quoted in the book as saying, "On September 20, 1918, after celebrating the Mass, I stayed in the choir for the due thanksgiving prayer, when suddenly I was overtaken by a powerful trembling, then calm followed, and I saw our Lord in the posture of someone who is on a cross."
Believers have sought to blame amnesia but the book says it can be "proven wrong." It's a convenient cop-out. Where is the doctor verifying that Pio lost his memory of the event?
Pio naturally did not see Jesus when he got the marks and lied later that he did for that was necessary to impress his Catholic superiors.
If you believe Catholicism or at least stigmata (a vile miracle that accuses God of being an abuser) is from the Devil you would expect to hear of unidentified beings doing seeming miracles for the Church. And Jesus' warning about false clever miracles would cover Pio's ultimately unimpressive stigmata.
BLOOD MARKS NOT CUTS
QUOTE: Before analyzing Padre Pio's sores, Monsignor Rossi must certainly put in order the papers he has received from the Holy Office. In the bulky file about Padre Pio, in fact, there are the descriptions by the doctors and experts who have preceded him. The first, in chronological order, is the one by Dr. Luigi Romanelli (May 15-16, 1919); the second, by Prof. Amico Bignami (July 26, 1919); the third and fourth, by Dr. Giorgio Festa (on October 28, 1919, and on August 31, 1920). Dr. Festa will also draft a fifth report, following his visit of April 7, 1925, after the events related in this book. They are interesting descriptions, but not without problems. The sores on the feet did not appear the same way to everyone: To some they looked like stab wounds, to others like "exudations", that is, bleeding, but without any cut. It even appears that the sore on the side often changed position and even shape. Aware of these difficulties, the Inquisitor begins his painstaking examination, in search of a solution.
COMMENT: The claim that there was no wounding is likely to be the truth. With exudation, nobody ever seen the blood coming out at close inspection. Pio just put the blood there before being checked.
QUOTE: The Visitor immediately notices an important element: On Padre Pio's palms there is "no lesion of the skin, no hole, either central or lateral". From this he draws a very precise conclusion: The blood that is on the palms and coagulates comes out of the skin through "exudation".
COMMENT: No cut no miracle!
We should assume that wounds were not always present when he was checked by others. But there had to be wounds at times. They are easy enough to make.
PIO'S WOUNDS DID HEAL
QUOTE: Observing the right foot, Monsignor Rossi writes: "On the upper side there is something like a rosette, of about one inch in diameter, with no trace of blood, neither recently flowed, nor long ago." To clarify what he has observed, the Visitor writes: "Let's imagine a closed wound, fully healed, over which a more delicate and whiter skin has grown: Such is the sign that appears on the upper side of this right foot."
COMMENT: The story of Pio invariably claims deliberately and falsely that his wounds were permanently open and would not respond to cures.
Here is another quote from the book on this subject:
The sores on the feet were about to disappear: What was possible to observe resembled two buttons with whiter and more delicate skin. The changeability of the appearance of the stigmata is something bewildering. Monsignor Rossi expected them to be bleeding, like the ones on the hands, and asks for clarification.
The defendant answers that the stigmata "at times [. . .] are more noticeable, at times less so; sometimes they look like they are about to disappear, but they don't, and then come back, flourishing again". It may be the case, concludes Monsignor Rossi, that those on the feet "could now be open again. Monsignor Rossi is still pondering-
QUOTE ABOUT THE SIDE WOUND: Judging it superficial, like Bignami, and of the shape of an upside-down cross, Dr. Festa so describes in his first report the wound he examined:
In the anterior region of the left thorax, situated the distance of about two fingers held horizontally under the mammary papilla, presents one last and more interesting lesion, in the shape of an upside-down cross. Its longitudinal arm measures about 2.8 inches: it starts from the anterior axillary line at the level of the 5th intercostal space, and goes down obliquely almost until the cartilaginous costal border, going through the skin in an area that is, as I have already pointed out, at a distance of about two fingers held horizontally below the mammary papilla. The horizontal arm of the cross is about 1.4 inches long, intersects the longitudinal arm not with a right angle, but slightly obliquely, at about 2 inches from its starting point, and looks wider and somewhat round at its lower extremity. This cross-like shape is very superficial.
COMMENT: It's just a surface mark not a wound. Again the conclusion about the bleeding was, "Considering the absence of wounds, it can be justifiably supposed that the blood comes out through exudation."
QUOTE FROM DR FESTA:
The "stigmata" on the hands are very visible, and caused, I think, by a bloody exudation: There is absolutely no opening or breaking up of the tissues, at least on his palms. It might be said there is on the back of the hands, even though I don't think there is, but then it must be agreed that the hypothetical opening doesn't penetrate through the hand cavity and doesn't come out on the palm.
COMMENT: The doctor even put stigmata in quotation marks.
QUOTE ROSSI CONTINUES:
Without being a specialist, but only on account of an elementary process of observation, I would certainly agree with Dr. Festa's opinion, against that of Dr. Romanelli, who maintains the existence of a wound from palm to back. After all, if the tissues were broken up, Padre Pio wouldn't be able to use the joints of the hand and close it; instead, he can move it and close it almost completely. On the inferior extremities the "stigmata" were about to disappear: What was possible to observe resembled two buttons with whiter and more delicate skin; but Padre Pio assures that the "stigmata" at times [. . .] are more noticeable, at times less so; sometimes they look like they are about to disappear, but they don't, and then come back, flourishing again: So it may be the case that those on the feet, too, could now be open again. In his side, the sign is represented by a triangular spot, the color of red wine, and by other smaller ones not anymore, then, by a sort of upside-down cross, such as the one seen in 1919 by Dr. Bignami and Dr. Festa. This is the sign that gives out the most blood. I had neither the desire nor the opportunity to perform a more extensive examination, which, given my task and my ignorance in medical matters, would have come to nothing: I did notice, though, that no other dermographic phenomenon appears around this bloody spot, and Padre Pio assured me that nothing like that is on his person. This would therefore represent a change from what Prof. Bignami reported:
There is also an evident dermatographism all over his chest, and on his back, too.
COMMENT: Why does Pio have marks one time and not another on his chest and back?
QUOTE, PIO CLAIMS TO BE USING A CHEMICAL, OLD IODINE, TO DISINFECT WHICH COULD HELP MAKE THE MARKS:
Besides the fact that he used it, according to Father Lemius' report, to disinfect the sores and it certainly sounds odd that stigmata that may be miraculous need disinfection the application of iodine, given that it was old iodine, easily could have contributed, because of the development of hydroiodic acid, to intensify preexisting skin alterations and to produce more in normal tissues. This could explain at least the preservation of the stigmata.
COMMENT: The preservation is more important than how he got the stigmata. It is more long lasting and significant. Preserving miraculous stigmata makes no sense. Preserving miraculous stigmata would mean it is maintained by trickery. So that means we may as well assume that it was no miracle that put the marks there in the first place.
QUOTE ON HOW PIO TAKES OATHS TO SAY HE DID NOT CHEAT: Today, at 4:30 P.M., I went to the cell occupied by the Reverend Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, and, after the oath de veritate dicenda he took on the Holy Gospels, in the presence of the Reverend Father Lorenzo of San Marco in Lamis, superior of the convent of San Giovanni Rotondo, I proceeded to the examination of the wounds that are said to be on Padre Pio's hands, feet, and chest. Padre Pio wears woolen half-gloves on his hands. Having asked him to please take them off, I start with an examination of the right hand. On the palm of the right hand a large round spot can be observed, two inches in diameter, covered with (or formed by) small scabs made of bloody matter, with the edges turned up on the same side, attesting therefore their tendency to fall off. These small scabs are divided into sections, according to the lines formed by the movements of the hand.
Q. Padre Pio, about the permanence of these scabs.
A. Once these fall off, others are found to be developing. The examination goes on. All around the spot there is something like a rose of light-colored blood that adheres to the skin - blood that obviously must disappear when washed with water, as confirmed by Padre Pio. It is obvious that there is no lesion of the skin, no hole, either central or lateral: From this, it seems possible to infer that the blood that is visible on the hand and that coagulates in these scabs comes out of the skin itself through exudation.
COMMENT: He assumes the blood comes through the skin for Pio says so. It is more likely that he just puts the blood on.
QUOTE: Examination of the chest. [In the original document, here on the side the Apostolic Visitor draws the image of the sore on the chest, as he saw it. (Brackets in Ital. ed.)] On the left side, 1.2 inches from the last rib, there is a triangular spot (like the one shown in the drawing), whose side measures about 0.8 inches, the color of red wine. There are no openings, cuts, wounds. About 2.8 inches above it, there are other small, scattered spots, as shown in the drawing, but small: the last one, on top, slightly bigger.
Q. Padre Pio, does blood come out of this sign?
A. From time to time, not always. When the bleeding is most intense it can soak a whole handkerchief. Considering the absence of wounds, it can be justifiably supposed that the blood comes out through exudation.
COMMENT: There is no side wound. This is not stigmata but bleeding.
QUOTE: Q. It appears that, when you requested the carbolic acid, you really requested it in secret, from your Brothers, too, to administer injections to the students. A. I repeat what I have already testified that the secret was requested to conceal from those who would transport it that it was a dangerous medicine: It didn't concern my Brothers. The purpose, yes, was to disinfect the syringe for the injections, which I, too, know how to administer. In a boarding school for boys there is often such necessity.
COMMENT: Pio gives himself away. No sane man thinks people transporting dangerous chemicals should not be told. There was no reason why carbolic acid had to be treated like a canister of bubonic plague for it was common in those times and people going to chemists for deliveries had to assume that what they were transporting could be dangerous. Pio had another reason for the secrecy - he needed the acid to make marks on his body.
QUOTE THAT THERE WAS NO RUPTURE IN PIO'S FLESH, "In this, Rossi agrees with Dr. Festa, rather than with Dr. Romanelli, who asserted the existence of a wound from one side to the other, and even believed the metacarpus ruptured. Back to text. 52 Rossi, p. 24. Rossi then does not confirm Professor Bignami's observation, according to which Padre Pio had "an evident dermatographism all over his chest, and on his back, too".
COMMENT: Pio had to have known there were no ruptures better than anybody. Yet he never admitted to it. He acted like he hoped stupid people would think he had fissures. He did not side with what any doctors said but kept a crafty silence.
PIO'S DRINKING
QUOTE: "You might say he eats everything, except meat, but he eats more or less a third of what I eat. Little bread; he drinks some beer, around half a liter, sometimes a little more. I know that throughout the day he drinks another half a liter."
COMMENT: A man with such fragile health as Pio's and who ate as little would get quite a hit from even one beer. Pio had to have been tipsy every day. And drinking makes a bleeder bleed more so nothing adds up.
CONCLUSION
The Church has done the right thing in not recognising the Pio stigmata. But it will not condemn it either and it needs condemnation as a false miracle. The Church is clear that it canonises Pio for his holiness and not his wonders. So it could condemn the stigmata without having to condemn Pio. The miracle of the marks failing to heal is definitely a lie. He at times seemed to sweat blood through the skin, in reality he was putting it on the skin. Other times cuts were there. Near the end of his life the hands were totally smooth and white. The miracle is clearly all down to Pio denying that the wounds healed. Pio had no right to ask for such trust. No doctor has the right to believe you when you say that you despite being healthy have had a cat scrape on your hand for ten years.