Today, Padre Pio is one of the most famous saints. His popularity in the Catholic world is enormous and is always growing. Popes, cardinals, bishops, priests, religious, and all believers venerate and love Padre Pio. He is also esteemed, revered, and respected by Protestants, the Orthodox, the Jews, and even in some Muslim circles. But people still continue to ignore the “passion” that Padre Pio lived through for his whole earthly life. To ignore the persecution as if it never existed is unjust and mistaken because the very persecution he endured—at times weeping with sorrow because of it but without ever complaining—demonstrates how great Padre Pio’s holiness was. Whenever he would hear one of his friends rail against ecclesiastical authority, he would become angry and say, “Kneel and ask for forgiveness: the Church is our mother even when she strikes us.”
