Review: Padre Pio: Man of Hope

Padre Pio: Man of Hope by Renzo Allegri
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I first was going to pass on this book without reading it, figuring it literally the type of hagiography that rarely holds something illumination, but then while reading Gomorrah I was intrigued by how many Italian gangsters revere the saint to the point of having his icons, etc. So, I picked this up since it was at hand. I found this a fascinating story of a man at war with papal, Capuchin and other Catholic establishment powers while worshipped and adored by the area populace and beyond. This went to the point of "Exclaustration": official authorization for Pio to live for a limited time outside his abbey while he fought the diabolical disease at this home. Actually, his visions and struggles with demons -- some may say hallucinations -- seems to have made inkpot-throwing Luther pale by comparison. Obviously the writer sides on the miraculous: He feels it obvious Pio could strive for a decade to secretly establish a hospital while considering ludicrous the several detractors that feel his stigmata came from hidden application of iodine or nitric acid or some other available caustic. Regardless, and I am sure I personally could never know the truth of these phenomena, yet still as a story of the growth and embattled success of a Catholic saint, this is a fascinating story crossing over both World Wars and with cameos from Gianbattista-Giuffre (an unscrupulous "God's Banker"), Pope John Paul II, and a sketchy entrepeneur named Emanuele Brunatto.

View all my reviews