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QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
St Padre Pio was an Italian Franciscan who said he got the visible stigmata in 1918 after having pains in his hands and feet and side on and off since 1915. Jesus was supposedly nailed hands and feet to a cross and got stabbed in the side. A stigmatic is a person who carries similar wounds as the result of a miracle.
Professor Bignami found superficial wounds on Pio's
breast and hands and feet. He agreed with Festa that there were no deep fissures
(page 100, The Physical Phenomena of Mysticism). Pio’s stigmata is
unsatisfactory. There is nothing remarkable about it (page 100, The Physical
Phenomena of Mysticism).
Bignami came up with an interesting diagnosis. The
hand wounds were not deep but in the epidermis. They were caused by a condition
called multiple neurotic necrosis (page 38, Padre Pio: Miracles and Politics in
a Secular Age). Suggestion and iodine were put forward as the means by which the
wounds were symmetrical and well-placed and prevented from healing (page 39,
ibid). He did not find any necrosis on the foot marks or in the side but merely
what appeared to be pigmented skin. He thought these marks brown in colour were
made by some irritating substance such as tincture of iodine (page 39, Padre Pio:
Miracles and Politics in a Secular Age).
FINALLY The experts were clear that Pio's marks were
not supernatural. They could be explained by natural medical science.
Patrick H Gormley