Padre Pio — The Five Wounds
The Italian friar who bore the stigmata for fifty years
Fifteen episodes on Francesco Forgione, the peasants' son from Pietrelcina who became the first stigmatized priest in the history of the Church. From the 1887 village to the convent of San Giovanni Rotondo, from the Holy Office suspensions to the improbable friendship with Karol Wojtyla, from the hospital he founded for the poor to the funeral that drew a hundred thousand people. The life of the saint told in historical detail and reverent silence.
15 episodes · Narrated in English, Portuguese, Spanish, French and German
Episode 1 is free
Episodes
- 01
Episode 1
Pietrelcina, eighteen eighty-seven. A peasant village in Campania. A boy who, at the age of five, promises himself entirely to God.
- 02
Episode 2
Nineteen-oh-three. At fifteen, Francesco enters the friary. He takes the habit, receives a new name, and begins to learn silence.
- 03
Episode 3
Nineteen ten to nineteen sixteen. A priest, but a sick one. At home, in temporary friaries, in the military hospital. Six years of letters and silence.
- 04
Episode 4
Nineteen sixteen. Padre Pio arrives in San Giovanni Rotondo. An isolated friary, a cold wind. The quiet years before the storm.
- 05
Episode 5
August of nineteen eighteen. Three days. A cross-shaped wound on his chest. The sign that comes before the five that will follow.
- 06
Episode 6
Nineteen eighteen. Friday morning. The empty chapel of the friary. Padre Pio receives the five stigmata. He will be the first stigmatized priest in the history of the Church.
- 07
Episode 7
Nineteen nineteen to nineteen twenty. Three Italian doctors examine the wounds. Each one reaches a different conclusion. None of them closes the case.
- 08
Episode 8
Nineteen twenty-one to nineteen twenty-three. The Vatican begins to investigate. The archbishop of Manfredonia writes negative reports. The Holy Office decides.
- 09
Episode 9
Nineteen thirty-one to nineteen thirty-three. Pius the Eleventh orders the strictest restriction. Padre Pio celebrates Mass in the inner chapel, with no congregation, with no confessions. The friary empties.
- 10
Episode 10
Nineteen thirty-nine to nineteen forty-five. The world war reaches Italy. American pilots report the appearance of a monk in the sky above San Giovanni Rotondo.
- 11
Episode 11
From nineteen forty to nineteen fifty-six. Padre Pio founds a hospital for the poor of Monte Gargano. Sixteen years of fundraising. The dream of a lifetime.
- 12
Episode 12
The nineteen forties and fifties. Padre Pio's network of spiritual children grows around the world. A young Polish priest arrives in nineteen forty-seven. Pio entrusts him with a secret.
- 13
Episode 13
From nineteen fifty-nine to nineteen sixty-one. John the Twenty-Third orders a new apostolic visitation. Monsignor Carlo Maccari examines every detail. The result will be bitter.
- 14
Episode 14
From nineteen sixty-two to nineteen sixty-eight. Wojtyla writes asking for prayers for an ailing mother. The miracle of Wanda. And the morning when Padre Pio dies, with the stigmata vanishing.
- 15
Episode 15
From nineteen sixty-eight to two thousand and ten. One hundred thousand people at the funeral. Thirty-four years of process. A boy who is healed. A Polish Pope who canonizes. A body exhumed and placed in the gilded crypt.
Read more on the Journal
What Is Purgatory? What the Church Actually Teaches
Purgatory in Catholic teaching — what the Catechism says and does not say, the scriptural basis, why it is not a second chance, what the 'fire' means, and how praying for the dead fits in.
Padre Pio's Stigmata: Fifty Years and the Medical Record
Padre Pio bore the stigmata for fifty years. The medical examinations, the wounds that did not heal or infect, and what they disappeared at his death.
