Rome, Italy, Nov 2, 2007 / 08:57 am
Italian journalist and writer Vittorio Messori warned this week a new book by historian Sergio Luzzatto, “ “Padre Pio. Miracoli e politica nell’ Italia del 900” (Padre Pio. Miracles and Politics in the Italy of the 1900s), is in no sense an attack on the memory of the saint but has instead been sensationalized by the media.
Media reports said the new book would call into question the authenticity of Padre Pio’s stigmata and would reveal “hidden episodes” that would supposed cast doubt on his holiness. Some reports even suggested the Italian saint was inappropriately involved with a woman and that it was covered up during the process of beatification and canonization.
In an extensive article published by the Italian daily “Corriere della Sera,” Messori said that each one of the accusations discussed by Luzzatto in his book were thoroughly answered by historians and experts years ago. He called the book “important and serious” and said the media does an injustice by taking excerpts from the 400-page book in an attempt to extrapolate “revelations” and “scandals,” such as the allegation that Padre Pio used chemicals to create the stigmata.
These suspicions, which come especially from the clergy, have been answered not only by the saint’s biographers, but also by the exhaustive investigations by Vatican commissions that carried out the beatification in 1999 and the canonization in 2002, Messori continued.