Did you know Padre Pio was once banned by the Vatican from celebrating Mass? Here’s how he responded

Do you know what Padre Pio said when the Vatican tried to suppress him?

Imagine you were part of the leadership of the Catholic Church, and you lived all the way in the Vatican. Far away from experiencing the holiness of a man like Padre Pio. You hear of his miraculous gifts, his bilocation, and his stigmata. Anyone with these gifts naturally rouses as much suspicion as they do admiration and hatred.

Church leadership tends to view miraculous matters with suspicion first before approval. Sometimes approval comes a really long time after an event or a person had passed.

So it is not surprising that many were skeptical of Padre Pio‘s stigmata, more so because of all the attention he was getting from the thousands who flocked around him. Even the Vatican believed he was lying about his stigmata and was worried people were following a false prophet.

They started many investigations and even listened in on his conversations. Many of the leadership’s skepticism drove them to lengths to prove he was a fraud but they failed to prove he led a doubt life. Eventually, they tried to move him to a different monastery altogether and to forbid him from performing his priestly ministry in public.

His Defense

Many people banded around him to defend the saint. A furious mob of supporters actually refused to let the saint be removed from the monastery. They refused to leave until Pio spoke to them saying:

“My blessed children … Now I implore you to listen to me, as you always do, and return to your homes without harming anyone.”

With this the Church had learned from experience it would be impossible to peacefully move the Saint. They however decided to restrict his faculties and remove him from public life:

Padre Pio is to be stripped of all the faculties of his priestly ministry except the faculty to celebrate the Holy Mass, which he may continue to do, provided that it is done in private, within the walls of the friary, in the inner chapel, and not publicly in church.

Even though it was very difficult for him to deal with, he obeyed and submitted to the decree. He responded:

“God’s will be done … The will of the superiors is the will of God.”

Padre Pio spent several years in silence, celebrating Mass in private and taking no visitors. He didn’t even write his spiritual children.

Do you know what Padre Pio said when the Vatican tried to suppress him?

His response:

During this time many of his supporters came to his defense criticizing the decision. They wrote petitions, letters, and even books. Pio was disgusted by this and told them to stop writing to his bishop to tell him he had nothing to do with the opposition:

I must repeat that I am very disgusted by the unworthy behavior of certain false prophets who speak in my behalf … they should stop this false and unworthy propaganda, but meanwhile they have followed in their morbid fanaticism, not caring about the supreme authority of the church.

I turn, therefore, as a son most humble and completely obedient to the Catholic Church … With profound humility I kiss your sacred ring and profess myself to your excellency your most humble and obedient son. (catholicsay.com)