25 years have passed since Pope John Paul II, now a Saint, at the end of a complex cause of beatification and canonization that lasted sixteen years, raised Padre Pio to the honor of the altars.
To commemorate the significant anniversary, the Capuchin minor friars of the religious Province of Sant’Angelo and Padre Pio will gather on May 2, at 6 pm, in the church-sanctuary of Santa Maria delle Grazie in San Giovanni Rotondo for a solemn Eucharistic concelebration, which will be presided over by Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints.
The diocesan investigation of the Cause began on 20 March 1983 in the sanctuary of Santa Maria delle Grazie, in San Giovanni Rotondo, fifteen years after the death of Padre Pio, and concluded in the same place on 21 January 1990. 104 volumes resulted of documents and testimonies, which were delivered in duplicate to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.
The so-called ‘Vatican’ phase began on 12 February of the same year in the ‘San Lorenzo da Brindisi’ room of the General Curia of the Capuchin Friars Minor in Rome. The examination of the documentation, summarized in the six volumes of the Positio, and the consequent favorable opinions, allowed the issuing of the decree on the heroic nature of the virtues which, proclaimed on 18 December 1997 in the Consistory room in the Vatican, attributed the title to Padre Pio of ‘venerable’.
A year later, on 21 December 1998, the decree on the miracle was promulgated in the same room, attributed to the intercession of Padre Pio. It concerns the recovery of Mrs. Consiglia De Martino of Salerno from “traumatic rupture of the thoracic duct in the neck”which the medical consultancy of the Congregation, with a unanimous opinion (five out of five), had judged to be “scientifically inexplicable” and which the theological commission, composed of the general promoter of the faith and six theological consultants, also in this case unanimously (seven out of seven ), had qualified as a miracle of the third degree or quoad modum.
This latter opinion had been ratified by cardinals and bishops, members of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. On December 21, 1998, the date for the beatification was set for Sunday, May 2, 1999.
