By Nicolás de Cárdenas, Walter Sánchez Silva
Among the many penitents who confessed with Padre Pio of Pietrelcina are two Catholic figures of great importance: Pope Saint John Paul II and Father Gabriele Amorth, the late exorcist of Rome.
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ACI PressItalian agency of the ACI Group, reported that on April 5, 2002, Saint John Paul II wrote a letter about his meeting with Padre Pio.
He sent the letter to the Capuchin friars of San Giovanni Rotondo for their archive, asking that it not be published before his death. The letter was published in the book The Pope and the friar.
In 1974, when he visited the tomb of the Holy Capuchin friar, the then Cardinal Karol Wojtyla left a record in the visitors’ book of the convent in San Giovanni Rotondo. Padre Pio “had a simple and clear discernment and treated the penitent with great love,” wrote John Paul II.
“This meeting with him still alive and stigmatized in San Giovanni Rotondo, I consider the most important and I particularly thank Providence for this,” he added.
In the Canonization Mass on June 16, 2002 In St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican, Saint John Paul II stated that “Padre Pio was a generous dispenser of divine mercy, making himself available to all through welcome, spiritual direction and especially the administration of the sacrament. of penance.”
“I too, during my youth, had the privilege of taking advantage of his availability to penitents. The ministry of the confessional, which constitutes one of the distinctive features of his apostolate, attracted innumerable crowds of faithful to the convent of San Giovanni Rotondo.
Padre Pio and the exorcist Gabriele Amorth
Father Gabriele Amorth, priest who performed more than 50 thousand exorcisms from 1985 until his death in 2016was spiritual son of Saint Pio of Pietrelcina and he confessed for 26 years with the Franciscan friar who had the stigmata of Christ.
Father Amorth also dedicated a book to the Capuchin saint entitled Padre Pio: Story of the life of a saint.
The exorcist was also in charge of taking an image of the Virgin of Fátima to Father Pio by helicopter before his death. This is what Paloma Pía Gasset, author of Direct witnesses of Padre Pio (ED. Custodian Books).
In this volume, published in Spain in 2022, the author compiles a series of interviews conducted years ago with people who dealt very directly with the Capuchin saint.
Nicholas de Cardenas
Born in 1980, I am a Spanish husband and father and journalist with more than 20 years of experience in print and digital media, specializing in sociopolitical and religious information. I have worked for more than 10 years in defense of human rights and have accreditations in Journalism and Comprehensive Communication. Since July 2022, I have been a correspondent for ACI Prensa and EWTN Noticias in Spain, covering international events of the Catholic Church.
Walter Sanchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.