What does science say about Padre Pio's stigmata?

"1921. The Holy Office sends Monsignor Raffaele Carlo Rossi to San Giovanni Rotondo to interrogate the friar. Among other things, Monsignor Rossi asks him for an account of a certain substance he secretly ordered from a local pharmacy, which could be used to procure the stigmata. The friar defends himself by claiming that he intended to use it to make a joke to the confreres, mixing it with tobacco in order to make them sneeze ».

Thus Don Aldo Antonelli on The Huffington Post (9 February) expresses himself on Padre Pio's stigmata. Antonelli's thesis is actually poorly documented and widely surpassed by several studies that demonstrate how stigmata are scientifically inexplicable. Let's see why.

"NON DESTRUCTIVE"

Among the first to take an interest in the case were Father Agostino Gemelli and then the former Sant'Uffizio in 1921 (www.uccronline.it, 5 February). As you know, Father Gemelli had scientific reservations about stigmata, however he did not say at all that they were not authentic. In a letter to the commissioner of the former Holy Office, Monsignor Nicola Canali, written on August 16, 1933, he explained that he had never published anything about Padre Pio and complained that he had not been misunderstood. In 1924, in fact, he wrote: «The stigmata of San Francesco do not present only a destructive fact, as in all the others, but also a constructive fact [...]. This is an absolutely inexplicable fact of science, while instead destructive stigmata can be explained with biopsychic processes ».

THE ACCUSATION: PHENIC ACID AND SHOWCASE

In 2007 the anti-clerical historian Sergio Luzzato expressed doubts about the supernatural origin of the stigmata of Padre Pio citing the testimony dating back to 1919 of a pharmacist, Dr. Valentini Vista, and of his cousin Maria De Vito, to whom Padre Pio would have ordered some phenic acid (to disinfect the syringes with which he gave injections to the novices) and veratrine (to combine it with tobacco), substances suitable for causing lacerations in the skin similar to stigmata.

THE "BIG ACCUSER"

The theses of Luzzatto, the main "accuser" of the truthfulness of the stigmata, have been refuted by several scholars such as father Carmelo Pellegrino, member of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, father Luciano Lotti, biographer of the saint of Pietrelcina and above all Andrea Tornielli and Saverio Gaeta. The two journalists, after consulting the documents of the canonical process, demonstrated the unreliability of the two testimonies since they were produced by the archbishop of Manfredonia, Pasquale Gagliardi, arch-enemy of Padre Pio who supported a real libelous campaign against the Capuchin since 1920 until 1930, until he was invited to renounce the leadership of the diocese for his questionable conduct and for showing the groundlessness of his serious accusations (F. Castelli, "Padre Pio under investigation", Ares 2008).

BECAUSE THEY DO NOT DEPEND ON PHENIC ACID

Furthermore, those of Padre Pio were not wounds or lesions of the tissues - as they should have been if procured with phenic acid - but blood exudations.
All the doctors who visited him, such as dr. Giorgio Festa who examined the stigmata on October 28, 1919, writing: "they are not the product of a traumatism of external origin, nor are they due to the application of powerfully irritating chemicals" (S. Gaeta, A. Tornielli, "Padre Pio , the last suspect: the truth about the friar of the stigmata ", Piemme 2008). It was a continuous, constant, remarkable exudation, only in precise points and with clear margins, which moreover did not give rise to inflammation (inflammation) or suppuration.

EXCLUDING EXTERNAL TRAUMA

It should be added that never, in any case, the phenic acid could have caused and maintained the deep lesions of the friar, finding his depth, like a hole that crossed hands and feet, covered only by a membrane of skin and blood crusts. As proof, we read some authoritative text of our days: the Martindale vademecum certifies that "severe or fatal poisoning can occur due to the absorption of phenol through the skin or wounds [and] solutions containing phenol must not be applied to large areas of the skin or large wounds since sufficient phenol can be absorbed to give rise to toxic symptoms ", while the handbook Undesirable effects from drugs makes it clear that phenolic acid" at the skin level can cause superficial coagulation necrosis ", that is, it does not favor but stops blood bleeding . No doubt: the continued use of phenic acid on the skin, even for just a few months, would have caused irreparable and evident damage (let alone for fifty years!) (Totustuus.it, May 2013).

WHY THE VERATRINA HYPOTHESIS DOES NOT HOLD

On the use of the veratrina (Padre Pio asked the pharmacist Vista for 4 grams), the friar was questioned by the apostolic visitor Carlo Raffaello Rossi - sent to San Giovanni Rotondo by the Holy Office on June 15, 1921. «I asked for it, without knowing even about it. 'effect - replied Father Pio - because the father Ignazio Secretary of the Convent, once gave me a small amount of said powder to put it in tobacco and then I looked for it more than anything else for a recreation, to offer the Confreres tobacco that with a small dose of this dust it becomes such as to immediately excite to sneeze ».

IRRITANT SUBSTANCE

Luzzatto criticized the justification. Yet as Gaeta and Tornielli always explain, it was enough to consult the Medicamenta volume. Theoretical-practical guide for health professionals, a kind of "bible" for pharmacists, who already in the 1914 edition explains: "The trade veratrine is a powder [...] very irritating to the mucous membranes and sneezing. [...] White, light powder, which irritates the conjunctiva and violently excites the sneeze. […] Sniffing causes sneezing, tearing and nasal phlegm, often even coughing ».

THE KEY TESTIMONY

In short, Padre Pio was completely right: in essence it was something similar to those powders that itched and made to sneeze, still used by the boys of the seventies at Carnival! And that the historian has "smelled" the truth but has pretended nothing shows us the guilty absence in his book of the testimony under oath of Father Ignazio da Jelsi, always before Bishop Ross: «I have a veratrine. In another convent we had a pharmacy for the community, very numerous. A pharmacist gave me a gram and I keep it. One evening, joking with the confreres, I tried to prove what effect it produces by bringing it closer to the nose. He also took Padre Pio of it and had to go to his cell because he did not stop sneezing ». In short, everything is except self-harm.

THE APPEARANCE OF PERFUME

Then there is all the aspect of the very strong perfume given off by the coagulated blood, adds the aforementioned dossier of Uccronline.it, found by doctors and by anyone who examined the stigmata. A discontinuous and not constant perfume, unlike those who make great use of perfumes.

"SCIENCE CANNOT EXPLAIN IT"

In 2009, on the occasion of a conference in San Giovanni Rotondo, Professor Ezio Fulcheri, professor of Pathological Anatomy at the University of Genoa and Paleopathology at the University of Turin, declared that he had long examined the photographic material and the documents on the stigmata by Padre Pio, concluding: «But what acids, what tricks ... Let's say it once and for all, clearing the field of any misunderstanding and suspicion: Padre Pio da Pietrelcina's stigmata are scientifically inexplicable. And even if, hypothetically, if they were produced voluntarily, hammering a nail on the hand and piercing it, current science would not be able to explain how those deep wounds remained open and bleeding for 50 years ».

"TYPE OF INEXPLICABLE WOUNDS"

He then went on: «I note that in the case of Padre Pio we were still in the pre-antibiotic era, and therefore the possibility of avoiding infections was even more remote than today. I can't imagine what substances allow wounds to remain open for fifty years. The more you study the anatomy and pathophysiology of the lesions, the more you realize that a wound cannot remain open as it happened for the stigmata of Padre Pio, without complications, without consequences for the muscles, nerves, tendons . The fingers of the stigmatized friar were always tapered, rosy and clean: with wounds that pierced the palm and emerged on the back of the hand, he should have had his fingers swollen, swollen, red, and with an important functional impotence. For Padre Pio, however, the evidence contrasts with the presentation and evolution of such a large wound, what was the initial cause. This is what science says. "