Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Sergio Luzzatto, Padre Pio. Miracoli e politica nell’Italia del Novecento

2008; Éditions de l'EHESS; Issue: 142 Linguagem: Inglês

10.4000/assr.15683

1777-5825

David Lehmann,

Historical and Environmental Studies

The cult of Padre Pio has engulfed the Catholic Church: in Italy, according to Sergio Luzzatto, more people pray to Padre Pio than to the Virgin, to any saint, or indeed to the very figure of Jesus Christ, and it has spread throughout Europe and the Americas.Padre Pio prayer groups constitute a worldwide devotional movement; the impoverished hamlet of San Giovanni Rotondo, on the plateau of the Gargano peninsula in Puglia, to whose minuscule convent the young Capuchin was sent during the First Word War, has become a thriving pilgrimage destination, on a par with Lourdes, Santiago de Compostela and the unrecognized but very popular Bosnian shrine of Medjugorje, and has recently seen the completion of an overbearing Renzo Piano church to accommodate the large numbers of pilgrims.This is big business, and also, as Luzatto tells us in delicious detail, big politics.