Published in the November, 2011 issue of Catholic Family News

It is a little known fact, even among Padre Pio devotees, that not long before he received the visible stigmata in 1918, he was drafted into the Italian army. But the tenure of the great saint’s tour of duty during World War I was greatly shortened by his chronic ill-health. He was declared fit only for non-combat duty within Italy, and was assigned to the Medical Corps, where the sickly and very unhappy private was only considered capable of menial tasks such as janitorial duties. He was repeatedly hospitalized and given more than one leave-of-absence for convalescence because of his incurable lung-related infirmities. In fact, the total time of his active duty amounted to only one hundred eighty-two days over a two and one-half year period. ¹

During the summer and fall of 1917, he was assigned to the military barracks at Naples, which at that time was under the overall command of General Luigi Cadorna, Chief of Staff. Cadorna was engaged on the northern front, personally leading hundreds of thousands of Italian troops that had been stalemated for years on the Austrian-Italian frontier. Then, on October 24, 1917, the German forces combined with the Austrians to launch a surprise attack along the front, culminating in the infamous battle of Caporetto. It was a disastrous defeat for the Italians, who had to retreat south almost to Venice. Their staggering loses included forty thousand casualties, with almost three hundred thousand troops taken prisoner, and even more than that number fleeing in retreat.

The Italian lines finally held on November 7 at the Piave River, but on the next day the monarchy relieved Cadorna of his command, replacing him with Armando Diaz as Chief of Staff. The battle of Caporetto is considered the most humiliating military defeat in Italian history. On the 9^th of the month, Cadorna packed his bags and prepared to leave for Rome.

The war would not end for another year. There were still major battles to be fought even after Padre Pio, now back in his friary, received the wounds of the stigmata at San Giovanni Rotondo in September of 1918. Then came Armistice Day on November 11 of that year, and a few months later the Paris peace talks began at Versailles. In spite of his clouded reputation, General Cadorna was appointed as one of the members of the Italian military delegation. However, in 1919 in the midst of the peace talks, the official state inquiry into the Caporetto defeat was released, and the blame was laid squarely on Cadorna. He was recalled from the Versailles negotiations, and returned to Italy in disgrace. ²

It was during the period of time between Cadorna’s defeat at Caporetto and his shameful recall from Versailles, that Padre Pio is said to have appeared in bilocation to the General.

Cadorna was alone in his quarters, understandably depressed and in desperate straits because of his public humiliation. With his head bowed in his hands and consumed by his own anguish, he grieved over all of the young men under his command whose lives were lost in the futile campaigns. Suddenly, he was blanketed by a strong aroma of roses that completely penetrated his room. Cadorna raised his head, and was amazed to see before him a friar, whose angelic countenance sharply contrasted with the appearance of his hands, which seemed to be bleeding. Coming closer to the General, the friar tried to reassure him with the words, "Stay calm, and don’t do anything drastic." Then, as quickly as he had appeared, the friar was gone, and with his departure the perfume of roses also disappeared.

Not long afterwards, the General confided his experience to a Franciscan priest. As soon as the perfume of flowers was mentioned, the priest said, " Your excellency, you have seen Padre Pio!" The priest then proceeded to explain to him the story of the stigmatized Capuchin friar. The General conceived the desire to see this friar in person, and some months later visited San Giovanni Rotondo. He arrived incognito, dressed in civilian clothing, and had told no one beforehand of his journey. But two Capuchins who recognized him came forward, and announced that Padre Pio was expecting him, and that they had been sent by the friar to greet him.

Thus concludes the earliest version of this story that the present author has been able to discover. It was written for a Catholic periodical in Italy in January of 1943, probably by Alberto del Fante. It appears in two places in del Fante’s classic (untranslated) six-hundred page treatise on the saint, Per la Storia: Padre Pio di Pietrelcina, Il Primo Sacerdote Stigmatizzato (For the Sake of History: Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, the First Stigmatized Priest.) ³

Unlike later accounts of this story by other authors, dating from the 1950’s, del Fante provides the reader with the names of some of his sources. He cites Signora Crusiani, the wife of General Venturi, and Signora Zoboli Francesca of Bologna as "persons worthy of belief," and states that the story also comes from "others."

He does not propose an exact date for the occurrence, while later writers are confident that it took place in October or November of 1917, at the time of the Caporetto defeat. Italian writer Renzo Allegri is more specific, citing the evening of November 9, which was the date Cadorna had to pack up and leave for Rome.⁴ Even the official biography of St. Pio, written by Fr. Fernando da Riese Pio X and published by the friary in San Giovanni Rotondo, places the event in November. ⁵ However, as pointed out by C. Bernard Ruffin in Padre Pio: the True Story, there are "major problems" with the 1917 dates. Padre Pio is said to have appeared to the General as a friar with bleeding hands, yet he did not receive the visible, bleeding stigmata until a year later, on September 20, 1918.

Some interesting additions creep into the story in the more recent accounts. In most of them, Cadorna is said to have taken a pistol from his night table, and was preparing to shoot himself. ^6,7 It was Padre Pio who prevented the suicide. Supposedly, sentries outside the General’s quarters had been ordered not to let anyone in to see him, and afterwards the General rushed outside demanding to know from the guards why they had let the friar pass. One version offers even more specific details, saying it was raining that night, that Cadorna opened a window because the perfume was so strong, and that after the incident, he put the pistol back in its holster, closed the window, and went to bed. ⁸

Many of the later embellishments appear to stem from the account given by Maria Winowska in her highly acclaimed The True Face of Padre Pio, first published in France in 1955. She was a close friend of Mary Pyle’s, the American heiress who became Padre Pio’s spiritual daughter and built a home next to the friary. Pyle was a gold mine of information on the saint, and Winowska had spent considerable time at her home. Her book is one of the references cited for the Cadorna incident in the friary’s official biography. Winowska mentions the suicide attempt, the revolver, the sentries, and that the General was in a tent, but says nothing about the stigmata or bleeding hands. She does not actually give a date for the incident in the English translation of her book. But she does mention that it occurred on November 9, 1917 in the Italian version, ⁹ and also in a later article she wrote for a Polish magazine. ¹⁰

Another book gives this version: "Hello General! We escaped by the skin of our teeth that night, didn’t we!" ¹⁸

Winowska writes that on Cadorna’s incognito trip to the monastery (she does not mention the two friars who came to greet him), he was informed that it would be impossible to personally see Padre Pio because of "doctors’ orders." However, he was told that he could stand in the corridor with others who were waiting for him to pass by. The General hid in a corner, and as the friar passed, he recognized Pio as the protagonist of the nocturnal visit during the war. The Capuchin smiled at him and raised a finger, as if to say "You had a lucky escape, my friend." ¹¹

Winowska offers no date for the monastery encounter. On the other hand, some important sources, including Fr. Fernando Riese in the official biography, and C. Bernard Ruffin in his American biography, give the year of the visit as 1920. ^12,13 Italian author Renzo Allegri also cites the same year. Allegri states that Cadorna had first heard about Padre Pio from newspaper accounts, and recognized him from his picture. Deciding to visit the monastery, he saw a group of friars and identified Padre Pio as the one who had appeared him. Then, according to Allegri and many other sources, Padre Pio came up to him and said, "We went through a bad time that night!" ("Generale, l’abbiamo passata veramente brutta quella notte!") ^{14, 15, 16, 17}

Ruffin notes that overall, the story of Padre Pio’s bilocation to General Cadorna is "considered genuine." ¹⁹ The presence of the story in the official biography also bestows an imprimatur. However, Ruffin does remark that the story appears to have been embellished, and the original source "is difficult to trace." ²⁰

The suicide attempt, the revolver, and his anger at the sentries for letting Pio pass, might be no more than literary trappings based on logical assumptions. But why would Padre Pio bother to appear to him unless Cadorna had contemplated taking of his own life? Since he was a soldier, using a gun and the presence of sentries do seem reasonable conclusions.

The date of the bilocation is never firmly established. Sources that do give a date in October or November of 1917 are probably assuming that his defeat at Caporetto would make that time period the logical choice. However, the mention of the friar’s bleeding hands in the early del Fante account runs counter to accepting a 1917 date. Del Fante in fact does not give a year, but says it occurred "during the other war." Further, he says it was only "some months later" that Cadorna went to San Giovanni Rotondo. ²¹

If the many accounts which report that he visited the friary in 1920 are true, then it is quite possible that the bilocation occurred in 1919, after Cadorna’s public humiliation at Versailles. This disgrace of being specifically blamed for the Caporetto debacle in the official report of inquiry, and his recall from the Paris peace talks, probably marked a lower point in his life than the defeat in battle itself. A 1919 date for that "brutal night" explains both the description of Pio’s bleeding hands, and Cadorna’s arrival in San Giovanni "some months later," in 1920. A 1917 date would mean an arrival some years later, and explaining the bleeding hands becomes a problem.

In view of the above considerations, a bare-bones vignette of the entire incident can be sketched. This scenario draws mainly but not entirely on the del Fante report, which is the oldest and most reliable:

 

One evening in 1919, soon after the issue of the official Italian state inquiry blaming him for the Caporetto defeat, General Luigi Cadorna contemplated suicide in his quarters. Just then, he sensed a strong perfume of roses, followed by the sudden appearance of a friar with bleeding hands and angelic countenance, who deterred him from the deed. Some months later, in 1920, Cadorna traveled incognito to the monastery at San Giovanni Rotondo, after learning that the friar might have been Padre Pio. Though he had told no one about his journey, two Capuchin friars greeted him, claiming they were sent by Padre Pio. As Padre Pio passed before the pilgrims who were waiting to see him, he recognized the General, and spoke a few words to him about that terrible night.

 

 

Notes:

1. Rega, Frank M., Padre Pio and America, Rockford, Il., 2005, pp. 40-46.
2. "Cadorna, Luigi" Encyclopædia Britannica  from Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service.
   http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9001549.
3. Del Fante, Alberto, Per la Storia: Padre Pio di Pietrelcina, Il Primo Sacerdote Stigmatizzato, (hereafter del Fante), Bologna, 1949, p. 127; p. 437.
4. Allegri, Renzo, I Miracoli di Padre Pio (hereafter Allegri), Milan, 1993, p. 109.
5. Fernando da Riese Pio X, Padre Pio da Pietrelcina: Crocifisso Senza Croce, (Hereafter Riese), San Giovanni Rotondo, 2002, p. 192.
6. Cataneo, Pascal, Padre Pio Gleanings (hereafter Cataneo), Quebec, 1991, p. 86.
7. Allegri, p. 109.
8. Alimenti, Dante, Padre Pio, Bergamo,1984, p. 83.
9. De Santis, Sergio, "Il Santo e il Macellario," www.cicap.org/ufficiostampa/cs_000908.htm.
10. Lacialamella, Myriam Frisoli, Voce di Padre Pio, Vol. XI, no. 9, 1980, p. 30.
11. Winowska, Maria, The True Face of Padre Pio (hereafter Winowska), London, 1961, p. 108.
12. Riese, p. 192.
13. Ruffin, Bernard, Padre Pio: The True Story (Revised and Expanded) (hereafter Ruffin), Huntington, IN, 1991, p. 146.
14. Allegri, p. 110.
15. Riese, p. 192.
16. Ruffin, p. 146.
17. Voice of Padre Pio, Vol. XIX, no. 3, 1989, pp. 6-7.
18. Cataneo, p. 87.
19. Ruffin., p. 325.
20. Ibid., p. 146.
21. del Fante, p. 127.