Vatican City, Jan 6, 2016 / 12:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The body of Padre Pio will be on display for veneration at next month’s Ash Wednesday Mass in the Vatican, where a group of priests will be sent out as “Missionaries of Mercy” for the Jubilee Year.
Pope Francis “has expressed his keen desire” for the relics of the Capuchin saint to be exposed during the Feb. 10 Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, said Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization.
In a letter Archbishop Michele Castoro of Manfredonia-Vieste-San Giovanni Rotondo, Archbishop Fisichella explained that this year’s Ash Wednesday is the day on which the Pope “will send the Missionaries of Mercy throughout the world, conferring on them the special mandate of preaching and hearing confessions, as a living sign of how the Father welcomes all those who seek his forgiveness.”
“The presence of St. Pio’s remains,” he said, “will be a precious sign for all missionaries and priests, who will find strength for their own mission in the wondrous example of this untiring, welcoming and patient confessor, an authentic witness of the Father’s mercy.”
These Missionaries of Mercy are priests who, during the Jubilee of Mercy, will be given the faculties to pardon sins in cases otherwise reserved to the Holy See.
St. Pio of Pietrelcina, colloquially known as “Padre Pio,” was a priest of the Order of the Friars Minor Capuchin, a stigmatist, and a mystic, who lived from 1887-1968. He was beatified in 1999, and canonized in 2002 by St. John Paul II. He was born in Pietrelcina, but ministered in San Giovanni Rotondo from 1916 until his death.
February’s exposition of Padre Pio’s remains at the Vatican is part of the relics’ tour for the Year of Mercy, which will include stops in Rome and Pietrelcina, according to newly released information.
Italian media reports that Padre Pio’s relics, which reside in the shrine at San Giovanni Rotondo, will arrive Feb. 3 at Rome’s Basilica of Saint Lawrence Outside the Walls, where it will remain through Feb. 4, under the care of the Capuchins.
On Feb. 5, the relics will be carried in procession from Saint Lawrence to St. Peter’s Basilica, where they will remain until Feb. 11. Various events will be held during this period, including a papal audience Feb. 6 with members of “Padre Pio prayer groups,” workers at the Home to Relieve Suffering – founded by St. Pio in 1956 – and faithful from the Manfredonia-Vieste-San Giovanni Rotondo archdiocese.
On Feb. 9, Pope Francis will preside over Mass with Capuchin brothers, Padre Pio’s own order, from around the world.
After Mass Feb. 11 for the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes presided over by Archbishop Fisichella, St. Pio’s relics will be taken for three days to Pietrelcina.
Article Archive
Missionaries of Mercy to be sent out under the gaze of Padre Pio
Related Articles • More Articles
Pope Francis prays during his Wednesday general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican on April 24, 2024. / Credit: Vatican MediaACI Prensa Staff, Apr 25, 2024 / 16:10 pm (CNA).Asked during a new interview if he has any message for Vladimir Putin, the Russian president who instigated the war in Ukraine, Pope Francis stated that "a negotiated peace is better than an endless war."CBS News broadcast some excerpts April 24 from a new interview conducted by journalist Norah O'Donnell with Pope Francis at St. Martha House, the pontiff's residence in the Vatican.During the exchange, the full version of which will be released on May 19, the Holy Father reflected on world conflicts and especially on the suffering of children during wars.O'Donnell asked the Holy Father if he had any message for Vladimir Putin regarding Ukraine, to which the pontiff replied: "Please, countries at war, all of them... Stop the war. Seek to negotiate. Seek peace. A negotiated peace is better than an e...
An aerial view of Washington Square in San Francisco on May 22, 2020. / Credit: JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty ImagesCNA Staff, Apr 25, 2024 / 16:45 pm (CNA).San Francisco police arrested a homeless man last Sunday for allegedly stabbing a parent from a nearby Catholic school after an altercation involving the two outside a historic Catholic church in the city. Twenty-five-year-old Marko Asaulyuk of San Francisco was charged with attempted murder and eight counts of assault with a deadly weapon.The Catholic school father, who was released from the hospital Sunday, only suffered a minor injury to his leg, Father Tho Bui, pastor of Sts. Peter and Paul Church, told CNA Thursday in an email.San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone was conferring the sacrament of confirmation on the parish school's students and students from a nearby parish during a noon Mass when a "disruptive man" entered the church, as Bui described him.The man was walking up and down the main aisle of the ...
The pro-life flag from the Pro-Life Flag Project (www.prolifeflag.com). / Credit: Pro-Life Flag Project (www.prolifeflag.com)Toronto, Canada, Apr 25, 2024 / 12:50 pm (CNA).The International Pro-Life Flag will not fly over Toronto Catholic schools this May.Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) trustees voted against an April 23 motion proposed by trustee Michael Del Grande that the pro-life flag fly outside all schools and the Catholic Education Centre during the month of May, just as the board voted to fly the Pride flag in June.Del Grande's motion was defeated at the April 23 board meeting when only Garry Tanuan supported Del Grande's motion. The eight other board members in attendance and the two student trustees opposed his proposal.Though Del Grande could not muster enough backing from his colleagues, his plan, which would have also directed all TCDSB schools to teach an exclusively pro-life curriculum on May 9, the day of the National March for Life, garnered bois...