June 16, 2002

This Sunday, June 16, Padre Pio (1887-1968) is being canonized as St. Pio of Pietrelcina. One of the largest crowds ever to gather in Rome will attend the solemn rites, for he was one of the Church's most astonishing miracle workers. The miracles are indications of his sanctity, but his holiness consisted of something even more impressive.

In 1971, Pope Paul VI said: "Look what fame he has had, what world clientele has gathered around him! But why? Was it because he was a philosopher? Was it because he was wise? Was it because he was a man of means? It was because he said the Mass humbly, he heard confessions from morning to night, and he was, difficult to say, a stamped representative of the stigmata of Our Lord. He was a man of prayer and suffering."

As a priest and consecrated religious, St. Pio was "Padre." Civilization has been built by good fathers, and the Liturgy invokes "Abraham our Father in Faith" and all the patriarchs as witnesses. Washington is the Father of our Country and Lincoln was Father Abraham to an afflicted people. Father's Day is a civil tribute to the fatherhood which begins with God our Father from whom all earthly fathers take their name. Bad fathers betray their families and their civilization. That is true of fathers of children and of our spiritual fathers who are bishops and priests. The Church is suffering today because many fathers have failed to obey the model of our Holy Father the Pope.

These months will see the canonization of some great men, each a model of some expression of fatherhood. I want to have a little temporary shrine to Padre Pio in the church, and to do this for some of the others too. Our Church and our culture need a good sweeping out by good fathers who will lead their children in the ways of righteousness. The way to keep a right focus in these days is to focus on the saints. The media have a way of ignoring the miracles of the saints, because they are inexplicable unless you admit the truth of Catholicism.

Fatherhood is a masterwork of virtue. The decree of Padre Pio's beatification in 1997 said: "It is certain that the Servant of God, Pio of Pietrelcina, to the world Francesco Forgione, professed Priest of the Order of Friar Minor Capuchin, has practiced to an heroic degree the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity, both towards God and towards neighbor, as well as the Cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance and the attached virtues"

It is sad for the moment that there are problems in the Church caused by irreverence and immorality. It is wonderful that the Church's other problem is that we are getting more saints than we can find room for on the calendar and our altars.

Fr. George W. Rutler