PADRE PIO: A LIFE DEDICATED TO PRAYER AND TO HIS FELLOW MAN

VATICAN CITY, MAY 2, 1999 (VIS) - This morning John Paul II celebrated the Eucharist in St. Peter's Square and beatified the Servant of God, Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, whom he called a "humble Capuchin friar who astonished the world by his life given wholly to prayer and to listening to his brothers and sisters."

In front of 300,000 pilgrims from all over the world who were gathered in and adjacent to St. Peter's Square, the Pope declared that the life of Blessed Padre Pio was "a constant act of faith."

"His body, marked by the 'stigmata,' displayed the intimate bond between death and the Resurrection that characterizes the Paschal Mystery. Blessed Pio of Pietrelicina shared in the Passion with a special intensity: The unique gifts that were granted to him and the interior and mystical suffering which accompanied them allowed him to constantly participate in the Lord's agonies, never wavering in his sense that 'Calvary is the hill of saints'."

The Pope went on: "No less painful, and perhaps even more distressing from a human point of view, were the trials that he had to endure as a result, it might be said, of his incomparable charisms."

The Holy Father highlighted the fact that so many people, upon "meeting him, directly or indirectly, rediscovered their faith, inspired by his example, 'prayer groups' have sprung up in every corner of the world. He held up the ideal of holiness to all who met him."

The charity of Blessed Pio of Pietrelcina "poured out like balm on the weakness and sufferings of his brothers and sisters. Padre Pio united his zeal for souls with concern for human suffering, working to build at San Giovanni Rotondo a hospital complex which he called the 'House for the Relief of Suffering'," where "he was above all concerned that the medicine practiced there should be truly 'human'."

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