Padre Pio's prophecy about John Paul II

A number of prophecies about future popes are attributed to Padre Pio. The most well-known and cited one concerns John Paul II. Karol Wojtyla met Padre Pio in the spring of 1947; at the time the young Polish priest studied at the Angelicum and lived in Rome in the Belgian College. In the days of Easter he went to San Giovanni Rotondo, where he met Padre Pio, and according to legend the friar said to him: "You will become Pope, but I also see blood and violence on you". However, John Paul II, on repeated occasions, has always denied having received this prediction.

The first to write about it, shortly after the assassination attempt on May 17, 1981, was Giuseppe Giacovazzo, at that time editor of the Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno. His editorial was entitled: You will be Pope in blood, Padre Pio said to him, and the buttonhole: A prophecy about Wojtyla ?. The journalist pointed out that his source was the correspondent of the Times Peter Nichols, who had mentioned it in 1980. The British journalist's source was, in turn, "a Benedictine who also lived in Italy" (which Nichols was unable to trace anymore) who would have learned everything from a brother who witnessed the episode. The comment of the future pope would have been the following: «Since I have no chance of becoming Pope, I can also be calm for the rest. I have a kind of guarantee that nothing bad can ever happen to me ». The previous day, the "summary" of the article was anticipated with a press release, also distributed by the Ansa agency. Thus, at the same time as the Gazzetta, many other newspapers "revealed" the prophecy attributed to the Capuchin saint and the topic was kept alive for over a month by the press.