The Holy Father’s 3 Gifts to the Shrine of Padre Pio
Three ‘special privileges’ have now elevated St. Pio’s shrine in San Giovanni Rotondo to the status of the shrines of Our Lady at Lourdes and Fatima. By decree of John Paul II, pilgrims will gain a plenary indulgence whenever they make a pilgrimage to Padre Pio’s tomb. This is on the condition that they go to confession, receive Holy Communion and pray for the Pope’s intentions while in San Giovanni Rotondo.
The announcement was made on January 22, 2002, by Archbishop Luigi DeMagistris, major Penitentiary of the Catholic Church, at the end of the centenary celebrations for ‘the religious clothing ceremony’ of Padre Pio. On January 22, 1903, Francesco Forgione was given the name ‘Pio’ by the Father Superior of the Holy Order and was first clothed in the habit of the Capuchin Friars.
The plenary indulgence is a Papal concession, a wonderful blessing, which allows for the possibility of a reduction of a sinner’s time in Purgatory. As mentioned in the last issue of Ecce, more pilgrims visit San Giovanni Rotondo than Lourdes - more than 7 million in 2001.
The 50 pilgrims from the Padre Pio Prayer Group / Chicago who attended the canonization ceremony on June 16, 2001, learned of the second privilege at that time. It is the ‘exceptional’ decision by the Pope that the memorial of St. Pio of Pietrelcina be inserted into the Roman liturgical calendar as ‘obligatory’. Only two saints canonized in the last 100 years share this glorious distinction: Ss. Padre Pio and Maximillian Kolbe On September 23rd of every year - the date of the saint’s death and heavenly birth - Padre Pio will be invoked at all Masses offered on that day throughout the world, and in the reading of the Divine Office.
Although the Holy Father gave this particular gift to the Church at the June 2002 canonization, very few parishes followed this direction last September. All devotees of St. Pio should remind their parish priests of this and also make a special point of attending a Holy Mass on Tuesday, September 23rd this year. We build devotion in others by our example and direction and devotion to Our Lord yields miraculous fruit.
The third privilege relates to the linking of the name of San Giovanni Rotondo to the name of the diocese in which the town is located, that is, the diocese of Manfredonia-Vieste. Now the diocese will now be known as the diocese of Manfredonia-Vieste-San Giovanni Rotondo. San Giovanni Rotondo is the town where Padre Pio lived for most of his life, where he died on September 23, 1968 and where his body is now entombed. The addition of the shrine’s name to the original name of the diocese in which the miracles took place also happened in the case of Lourdes and Fatima. Our Lady appeared at Lourdes to St. Bernadette in the diocese of Tarbes. The name of Lourdes was added in 1912, fifty-eight years after the apparitions, creating the diocese of Tarbes and Lourdes. In 1984, two years after the assassination attempt on the Holy Father, Fatima was added to the name of the diocese of Leira in which Our Lady appeared. The diocese is now called Leira-Fatima.
These privileges all come by the decision of Pope John Paul II, who went to confession to Padre Pio in April of 1947 and, later, in 1962, asked the Padre to intercede with God for the cure of Wanda Polawska, a Polish woman friend with seven children who had a life-threatening tumor. She was subsequently cured.
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