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Tales of Padre PioBy John McCaffrey

Doubleday / Image Books, 224 pp., $4.50 On his first train ride to San Giovanni Rotondo, where Padre Pio the stigmatist lived, John McCaffrey met a young Italian who, it transpired, had been miraculously cured by Pio. “Miraculously” is almost an understatement. At the time of his cure, the Italian said, he had never heard of Pio. He was lying in his hospital bed near death from a lung disease when a bearded Capuchin friar appeared and laid a hand on his chest. The disease vanished. Later the young man saw a picture of Padre Pio and recognized him as the friar; he set out for San Giovanni to join the long lines of penitents waiting their turn to confess to this legendary man. Finally the young man entered the confessional, told his sins, was absolved. As he rose to leave, Pio’s voice asked: “How are the lungs?”

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Joseph Sobran

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Tales of Padre PioBy John McCaffrey

Doubleday / Image Books, 224 pp., $4.50 On his first train ride to San Giovanni Rotondo, where Padre Pio the stigmatist lived, John McCaffrey met a young Italian who, it transpired, had been miraculously cured by Pio. “Miraculously” is almost an understatement. At the time of his cure, the Italian said, he had never heard of Pio. He was lying in his hospital bed near death from a lung disease when a bearded Capuchin friar appeared and laid a hand on his chest. The disease vanished. Later the young man saw a picture of Padre Pio and recognized him as the friar; he set out for San Giovanni to join the long lines of penitents waiting their turn to confess to this legendary man. Finally the young man entered the confessional, told his sins, was absolved. As he rose to leave, Pio’s voice asked: “How are the lungs?”