From the memoirs of Padre Pellegrino,
who lived with the saint from 1950 and was present at his death in
1968.
One afternoon, I took the
opportunity of objecting once again at the ease with which Padre Pio
postponed or denied absolution. I said, “Padre, with the help of
Brother Costantino and many other devout souls, you work hard to
bring back wayward children to the bosom of the Church, but at the
same time, you leave them without absolution for months. Doesn't
this mean that you leave them still outside the Church?” He
replied, It is not enough to enter; one must enter in the correct
manner. For you it is enough to see a mass entry, but I want to see
them well prepared. The months spent in preparation for entry into
the Church are months well spent. To enter unprepared is the same as
not entering.” Padre Pio's reply didn't surprise me; it simply
confirmed, once gain, his holy severity.
Once a little girl of
nine or ten left Padre Pio's confessional in tears. As she passed
by, she told me that she had not been given absolution for having
missed Mass on Sundays. I was speechless. The child's mother was
beginning to inveigh against the excessive rigor of Padre Pio's
methods. The child interrupted her mother, saying, “No, mother.
Padre Pio was right. I will never again miss Sunday Mass!” On
hearing the child's words I left aside my fury and I became
enthusiastic to the point that I could have run to kiss that terrible
confessor on the forehead. However, I was still a little concerned.
The doubt that the system was a little Machiavellian persisted.
No priest who is
conscious of his duty can give absolution to penitents who are openly
insincere. It would be foolish of him to believe that, due to the
possession of a license as a confessor, he can reconcile the spirit
of good with that of evil. What are over-indulgent priests doing in
the confessional? They are worse than ill-disposed penitents, to say
the least. Padre Pio was in complete agreement with the severest
Catholic moralists concerning undeserving, relapsed or in one way or
another unprepared penitents. Disconsolately, he said, “How can
you give absolution to these penitents?” He prayed a lot for their
conversion and, whenever he could, he harshly criticized them, but he
never, ever, pretended to place the sign of absolution on their
foreheads.
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However, he was one of
the few priests who postponed giving absolution even to those
penitents, who, because of their sincerity and repentance and the
earnestness of their purpose, were, as he himself knew, sufficiently
prepared. On some occasions it appeared to me that he abused the
power he had received from the Church by putting off giving
absolution to well-prepared penitents; penitents who were often a lot
better prepared than others. And, at the same time, those who had
been thrown out by him were received and absolved by other learned
and severe priests. However, Padre Pio never criticized those
“reserve priests.” On the contrary, he sometimes said to those
whom he had left without absolution: “Now go and confess to another
priest.” It seemed that he wanted, in that manner, to emphasize
the gaping difference which existed between his own behavior and that
of other priests. He was convinced he had not harmed any of these
penitents.
I once said to him: “In
the case of death, these people whom you refused absolution run the
risk of damnation.” He replied: “Who told you these souls were
not in the grace of God?” I objected: “If they are in the grace
of God why can't they receive Holy Communion? And he: “Because
they must do a particular penance.” The Padre believed that those
penitents who are well-prepared and who had not been absolved, were
not in God's disfavor as a result of the fact that they hadn't been
given absolution, and even though they were at the door of the
Church, they were already part of the ecclesiastical circle. This
period of waiting at the door of the Church was a rather “refined”
penance, and precisely for this reason, it was probably reserved for
those souls who were capable of understanding its importance and
efficacy.
Some people from Tuscany,
on returning from San Giovanni Rotondo and passing through Rome, were
received in a general audience by Pope Pius XII. “Your Holiness,
we have come from San Giovanni Rotondo,” they shouted to the Pope.
His holiness approached them and asked how Padre Pio was. “Very
well your Holiness, they replied, and then added, “We went to
confession to him but none of us received absolution.” The pope
showed some interest: “I have been told that this holy man
sometimes denies absolution. But tell me this, do those who don't
receive absolution return afterwards?” “Almost all,” came the
reply of the people of Tuscany. So the Holy Father concluded: “Well
then, when you return, tell him, in my name, to continue in this
manner.”
A friend of mine who had
helped with some words of advice and comfort, told me in confidence
about the last phase of his own conversion, which had come about some
months previously thanks to Padre Pio. He told me that, after having
suffered the bitterness of being thrown out of Padre Pio's
confessional many times, one bright day he was finally absolved and
was so happy that immediately after the absolution, he asked the
confessor to kiss him. And Padre Pio embraced him. But shortly
after the confession, the Padre was passing through the sacristy on
his way into the friary and seeing my friend near the door wanting to
kiss his hand, he said to him severely, “I don't want to see
certain faces twice in the same day,” and he closed the door in his
face, leaving him extremely upset.
In tears, my friend went
for a walk in the square in front of the church. And there, even
though he didn't know him, Dr. Sanguinetti approached him and on
discovering the reason for his tears, proposed that he go to Padre
Pio's cell to ask for an explanation. The poor unfortunate was a
little doubtful, but he accepted.
Then, in cell no. 5,
Padre Pio, as if to excuse himself, said to him: “I treated you in
that manner as a penance for myself. I was enjoying your return to
the Church too much, as if I had been responsible.” Padre Pio's
reply, which convinced my friend, did not please me. One afternoon,
in the presence of Padre Pio and Dr. Sanguinetti, my friend jokingly
hinted at the day of his first absolution. I took advantage of this
and immediately asked Padre Pio, “With the excuse of mortifying
your self-love, you made this poor unfortunate cry. Why?” And
then, having read in my eyes my doubts on the legitimacy of his
behavior, Padre Pio finished the explanation. “That day he also
had to understand that he was more of a son of the Church than a son
of mine. He was not to run after me, whilst in the church there is
Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.”
These slightly-edited
excerpts are from Padre Pio's Jack of All Trades, by Padre
Pellegrino Funicelli, pp. 107-114, Our Lady of Grace Capuchin Friary,
1991.
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