Padre Pio and the General - A Study in Bilocation
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Published in the November, 2011 issue of Catholic Family News and in The Voice of Padre Pio, Jan-Feb. 2012, published by his Friary |
by Frank Rega
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It
is a little known fact, even among Padre Pio devotees, that not long before
he received the visible stigmata in 1918, he was drafted into the Italian
army. But the tenure of the great saint’s tour of duty during World War I was
greatly shortened by his chronic ill-health. He was declared fit only for
non-combat duty within Italy, and was assigned to the Medical Corps, where
the sickly and very unhappy private was only considered capable of menial
tasks such as janitorial duties. He was repeatedly hospitalized and given
more than one leave-of-absence for convalescence because of his incurable
lung-related infirmities. In fact, the total time of his active duty amounted
to only one hundred eighty-two days over a two and one-half year period. 1
During
the summer and fall of 1917, he was assigned to the military barracks at
Naples, which at that time was under the overall command of General Luigi
Cadorna, Chief of Staff. Cadorna was engaged on the northern front,
personally leading hundreds of thousands of Italian troops that had been
stalemated for years on the Austrian-Italian frontier. Then, on October 24,
1917, the German forces combined with the Austrians to launch a surprise
attack along the front, culminating in the infamous battle of Caporetto. It
was a disastrous defeat for the Italians, who had to retreat south almost to
Venice. Their staggering loses included forty thousand casualties, with
almost three hundred thousand troops taken prisoner, and even more than that
number fleeing in retreat. The
Italian lines finally held on November 7 at the Piave River, but on the next
day the monarchy relieved Cadorna of his command, replacing him with Armando
Diaz as Chief of Staff. The battle of Caporetto is considered the most
humiliating military defeat in Italian history. On the 9th of the
month, Cadorna packed his bags and prepared to leave for Rome. The
war would not end for another year. There were still major battles to be
fought even after Padre Pio, now back in his friary, received the wounds of
the stigmata at San Giovanni Rotondo in September of 1918. Then came
Armistice Day on November 11 of that year, and a few months later the Paris
peace talks began at Versailles. In spite of his clouded reputation, General
Cadorna was appointed as one of the members of the Italian military
delegation. However, in 1919 in the midst of the peace talks, the official
state inquiry into the Caporetto defeat was released, and the blame was laid
squarely on Cadorna. He was recalled from the Versailles negotiations, and returned
to Italy in disgrace. 2 It
was during the period of time between Cadorna’s defeat at Caporetto and his
shameful recall from Versailles, that Padre Pio is said to have appeared in
bilocation to the General. Cadorna
was alone in his quarters, understandably depressed and in desperate straits
because of his public humiliation. With his head bowed in his hands and
consumed by his own anguish, he grieved over all of the young men under his
command whose lives were lost in the futile campaigns. Suddenly, he was
blanketed by a strong aroma of roses that completely penetrated his room.
Cadorna raised his head, and was amazed to see before him a friar, whose
angelic countenance sharply contrasted with the appearance of his hands,
which seemed to be bleeding. Coming closer to the General, the friar tried to
reassure him with the words, "Stay calm, and don’t do anything
drastic." Then, as quickly as he had appeared, the friar was gone, and
with his departure the perfume of roses also disappeared. Not
long afterwards, the General confided his experience to a Franciscan priest.
As soon as the perfume of flowers was mentioned, the priest said, " Your
excellency, you have seen Padre Pio!" The priest then proceeded to
explain to him the story of the stigmatized Capuchin friar. The General
conceived the desire to see this friar in person, and some months later
visited San Giovanni Rotondo. He arrived incognito, dressed in civilian
clothing, and had told no one beforehand of his journey. But two Capuchins
who recognized him came forward, and announced that Padre Pio was expecting
him, and that they had been sent by the friar to greet him. Thus
concludes the earliest version of this story that the present author has been
able to discover. It was written for a Catholic periodical in Italy in
January of 1943, probably by Alberto del Fante. It appears in two places in
del Fante’s classic (untranslated) six-hundred page treatise on the saint, Per
la Storia: Padre Pio di Pietrelcina, Il Primo Sacerdote Stigmatizzato
(For the Sake of History: Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, the First Stigmatized
Priest.) 3 Unlike
later accounts of this story by other authors, dating from the 1950’s, del
Fante provides the reader with the names of some of his sources. He cites
Signora Crusiani, the wife of General Venturi, and Signora Zoboli Francesca
of Bologna as "persons worthy of belief," and states that the story
also comes from "others." He
does not propose an exact date for the occurrence, while later writers are
confident that it took place in October or November of 1917, at the time of
the Caporetto defeat. Italian writer Renzo Allegri is more specific, citing
the evening of November 9, which was the date Cadorna had to pack up and
leave for Rome.4 Even the official biography of St. Pio, written
by Fr. Fernando da Riese Pio X and published by the friary in San Giovanni
Rotondo, places the event in November. 5 However, as pointed out
by C. Bernard Ruffin in Padre Pio: the True Story, there are
"major problems" with the 1917 dates. Padre Pio is said to have
appeared to the General as a friar with bleeding hands, yet he did not
receive the visible, bleeding stigmata until a year later, on September 20,
1918. Some
interesting additions creep into the story in the more recent accounts. In
most of them, Cadorna is said to have taken a pistol from his night table,
and was preparing to shoot himself. 6,7 It was Padre Pio who
prevented the suicide. Supposedly, sentries outside the General’s quarters
had been ordered not to let anyone in to see him, and afterwards the General
rushed outside demanding to know from the guards why they had let the friar
pass. One version offers even more specific details, saying it was raining
that night, that Cadorna opened a window because the perfume was so strong,
and that after the incident, he put the pistol back in its holster, closed
the window, and went to bed. 8 Many
of the later embellishments appear to stem from the account given by Maria
Winowska in her highly acclaimed The True Face of Padre Pio, first
published in France in 1955. She was a close friend of Mary Pyle’s, the
American heiress who became Padre Pio’s spiritual daughter and built a home
next to the friary. Pyle was a gold mine of information on the saint, and
Winowska had spent considerable time at her home. Her book is one of the
references cited for the Cadorna incident in the friary’s official biography.
Winowska mentions the suicide attempt, the revolver, the sentries, and that
the General was in a tent, but says nothing about the stigmata or bleeding
hands. She does not actually give a date for the incident in the English
translation of her book. But she does mention that it occurred on November 9,
1917 in the Italian version, 9 and also in a later article she
wrote for a Polish magazine. 10 Winowska
writes that on Cadorna’s incognito trip to the monastery (she does not
mention the two friars who came to greet him), he was informed that it would
be impossible to personally see Padre Pio because of "doctors’
orders." However, he was told that he could stand in the corridor with
others who were waiting for him to pass by. The General hid in a corner, and
as the friar passed, he recognized Pio as the protagonist of the nocturnal
visit during the war. The Capuchin smiled at him and raised a finger, as if
to say "You had a lucky escape, my friend." 11 Winowska
offers no date for the monastery encounter. On the other hand, some important
sources, including Fr. Fernando Riese in the official biography, and C.
Bernard Ruffin in his American biography, give the year of the visit as 1920.
12,13 Italian author Renzo Allegri also cites the same year.
Allegri states that Cadorna had first heard about Padre Pio from newspaper
accounts, and recognized him from his picture. Deciding to visit the
monastery, he saw a group of friars and identified Padre Pio as the one who
had appeared him. Then, according to Allegri and many other sources, Padre
Pio came up to him and said, "We went through a bad time that
night!" ("Generale, l’abbiamo passata veramente brutta quella
notte!") 14, 15, 16, 17 Another
book gives this version: "Hello General! We escaped by the skin of our
teeth that night, didn’t we!" 18
Ruffin
notes that overall, the story of Padre Pio’s bilocation to General Cadorna is
"considered genuine." 19 The presence of the story in
the official biography also bestows an imprimatur. However, Ruffin does
remark that the story appears to have been embellished, and the original
source "is difficult to trace." 20 The
suicide attempt, the revolver, and his anger at the sentries for letting Pio
pass, might be no more than literary trappings based on logical assumptions.
But why would Padre Pio bother to appear to him unless Cadorna had
contemplated taking of his own life? Since he was a soldier, using a gun and
the presence of sentries do seem reasonable conclusions. The
date of the bilocation is never firmly established. Sources that do give a
date in October or November of 1917 are probably assuming that his defeat at
Caporetto would make that time period the logical choice. However, the
mention of the friar’s bleeding hands in the early del Fante account runs
counter to accepting a 1917 date. Del Fante in fact does not give a year, but
says it occurred "during the other war." Further, he says it was
only "some months later" that Cadorna went to San Giovanni Rotondo.
21 If
the many accounts which report that he visited the friary in 1920 are true,
then it is quite possible that the bilocation occurred in 1919, after
Cadorna’s public humiliation at Versailles. This disgrace of being
specifically blamed for the Caporetto debacle in the official report of
inquiry, and his recall from the Paris peace talks, probably marked a lower
point in his life than the defeat in battle itself. A 1919 date for that
"brutal night" explains both the description of Pio’s bleeding
hands, and Cadorna’s arrival in San Giovanni "some months later,"
in 1920. A 1917 date would mean an arrival some years later, and
explaining the bleeding hands becomes a problem. In
view of the above considerations, a bare-bones vignette of the entire
incident can be sketched. This scenario draws mainly but not entirely on the
del Fante report, which is the oldest and most reliable: One
evening in 1919, soon after the issue of the official Italian state inquiry
blaming him for the Caporetto defeat, General Luigi Cadorna contemplated
suicide in his quarters. Just then, he sensed a strong perfume of roses,
followed by the sudden appearance of a friar with bleeding hands and angelic
countenance, who deterred him from the deed. Some months later, in 1920,
Cadorna traveled incognito to the monastery at San Giovanni Rotondo, after
learning that the friar might have been Padre Pio. Though he had told no one
about his journey, two Capuchin friars greeted him, claiming they were sent
by Padre Pio. As Padre Pio passed before the pilgrims who were waiting to see
him, he recognized the General, and spoke a few words to him about that
terrible night. Notes: The Voice of Padre Pio magazine, published by Padre Pio's Friary in
Italy, is available via The Padre Pio
Foundation and The National Centre for
Padre Pio. 1.
Rega, Frank M., Padre
Pio and America, Rockford, Il., 2005, pp. 40-46. 2.
"Cadorna,
Luigi" Encyclopędia Britannica from Encyclopędia
Britannica Premium Service. 3.
Del Fante, Alberto, Per
la Storia: Padre Pio di Pietrelcina, Il Primo Sacerdote Stigmatizzato, (hereafter
del Fante), Bologna, 1949, p. 127; p. 437. 4.
Allegri, Renzo, I
Miracoli di Padre Pio (hereafter Allegri), Milan, 1993, p. 109. 5.
Fernando da Riese Pio
X, Padre Pio da Pietrelcina: Crocifisso Senza Croce, (Hereafter Riese),
San Giovanni Rotondo, 2002, p. 192. 6.
Cataneo, Pascal, Padre
Pio Gleanings (hereafter Cataneo), Quebec, 1991, p. 86. 7.
Allegri, p. 109. 8.
Alimenti, Dante, Padre
Pio, Bergamo,1984, p. 83. 9.
De Santis, Sergio,
"Il Santo e il Macellario," www.cicap.org/ufficiostampa/cs_000908.htm. 10.
Lacialamella, Myriam
Frisoli, Voce di Padre Pio, Vol. XI, no. 9, 1980, p. 30. 11.
Winowska, Maria, The
True Face of Padre Pio (hereafter Winowska), London, 1961, p. 108.
12.
Riese, p. 192. 13.
Ruffin, Bernard, Padre
Pio: The True Story (Revised and Expanded) (hereafter Ruffin),
Huntington, IN, 1991, p. 146. 14.
Allegri, p. 110. 15.
Riese, p. 192. 16.
Ruffin, p. 146. 17.
Voice of Padre Pio, Vol. XIX, no. 3, 1989, pp. 6-7. 18.
Cataneo, p. 87. 19.
Ruffin., p. 325. 20.
Ibid., p. 146. 21. del Fante,
p. 127. |
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