{"id":80351,"date":"2026-02-07T07:57:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T12:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/?p=80351"},"modified":"2026-03-19T22:37:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T02:37:09","slug":"archives-was-it-pio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/archives-was-it-pio\/","title":{"rendered":"Archives: Was It Pio?"},"content":{"rendered":"

.<\/span><\/p>\n

Back in February of 2015, relics of the great Saint Padre Pio\u2014including his encased body\u2014 left the Vatican after a six-day journey in various parts of Rome, part of a Jubilee Year of Mercy. It was Pope Francis himself who authorized the relics to be circulated (they were seen by an estimated 500,000), and the Holy Father himself prayed with a Padre Pio prayer group at the start of the exhibition (which may allay fears from traditionalists that the current Pontiff is straying from such veneration, as perhaps also will his obvious devotion to the Blessed Mother, seen most recently at Guadalupe).<\/span><\/p>\n

\"ImageWhatever the case, the point is that Pope Francis had of late been in close proximity to the incredible, wonder-working saint (who so often had been seen in bi-location), and so it was galvanizing to receive a screenshot of television coverage on Friday (coincidentally, the day after Pio’s relics left Rome), that bore a startling reflection resembling the great saint in cowl and Franciscan robe.<\/span><\/p>\n

The remarkable reflection [see\u00a0above<\/i>] was just behind the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church as he and Francis embraced in Cuba in what virtually all commentators saw as a historic event. It was the first time in 1,000 years that the leaders of the two huge denominations of Christianity have met and has the potential for setting in motion a lessening of the Great Schism that for so long has painfully divided Christianity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Was Padre Pio behind it (literally)? Or at least\u00a0with<\/i>\u00a0the Holy Father? Did he “accompany” the Pope from Italy to Cuba (and perhaps now Mexico)?<\/span><\/p>\n

The photo \u2014 coming to us immediately after the meeting \u2014seemed too\u00a0<\/i>immediate to be a hoax (back then, “photo-shopped”). But one always qualifies. As in so many cases, it was open to interpretation and “explanation.” Questioning is healthy, as long as it does not negate faith. Was it Pio, or the reflection of a clerical Orthodox attendant behind the scenes and camera? Perhaps a refraction of light that somehow caught a distorted image of the Patriarch himself \u2014 who also wears a cowl, robe, and beard, as did the saint?<\/span><\/p>\n

\"padreThere is always room for doubt, as there is frequently an element of the natural in the supernatural (and vice versa). We’ll leave it as it was. But when it comes to the supernatural, let us above all be open, recalling, perhaps, something a Catholic named Antonin Scalia once said about skeptics and miracles (this Harvard-educated, revered jurist, during a talk in 2014 to the St. Thomas More Society of Maryland):<\/span><\/p>\n

“Although the sophisticated may deride<\/span>\u00a0them as simple-minded, committed Christians should have the courage to embrace their faith. It isn’t irrational to accept the testimony of eyewitnesses to miracles.<\/span><\/p>\n

“What is irrational<\/i>\u00a0is to reject\u00a0a priori,<\/i> with no investigation, the possibility of miracles in general and of Jesus Christ’s resurrection in particular \u2014 which is, of course, precisely what the worldly wise do.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Why wasn’t that Church absolutely packed with nonbelievers, seeking to determine if there might be something to this?” this now-deceased law expert (a judge, let us remember!), asked his audience, referring to reports years back of weeping statues and a stigmatic priest at a church in Maryland.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The answer was obvious,<\/span> the late Supreme Court Justice Scalia said (with a bit of disdain): “The wise do not investigate such silliness. Surely those who adhere to all or most of these traditional Christian beliefs are regarded in the educated circles that you and I travel in as, well, simple-minded.” He added that Christian fundamentalists had been described by a story in the Washington Post\u00a0<\/i>as poorly educated and easily led. The same attitude applies, of course, to traditional Catholics who do such positively peasant-like things as saying the Rosary, kneeling in adoration before the Eucharist, going on pilgrimages to Lourdes or Medjugorje and \u2014 worst of all \u2014 following indiscriminately, rather in smorgasbord fashion, the teachings of the Pope.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Gullibility\u2014or Faith?<\/span><\/p>\n

Whatever the case with this reflection of “Pio,” it is hard to reconcile the current climate of skepticism with the miracles of the New and Old Testaments. In some circles, this Christian resistance to notion of the supernatural might be called “cognitive dissonance.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Is it\u00a0always<\/i> just a refraction of light, just a distorted shadow, just a… reflection?<\/span><\/p>\n

[resources: books on miracles<\/a><\/span>]<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

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. Back in February of 2015, relics of the great Saint Padre Pio\u2014including his encased body\u2014 left the Vatican after.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-80351","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-archives","7":"entry"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80351\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}