Thousands queue to view body of St Pio
By Anna Arco
2 May 2008

St Pio's body, wearing a wax mask to disguise signs of decomposition, goes on display in Italy

St Pio of Pietrelcino's crystal tomb has been officially unveiled in Italy after the saint was exhumed in early March.

Cardinal Saraiva Martins, the prefect of the Congregation for Saints' Causes, celebrated Mass in San Giovannni Rotonda at the shrine of St Pio before the tomb was officially unveiled.

Pilgrims to the world's second most visited shrine - Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City is the most popular - will be able to see the body of the Capuchin friar and mystic who died 40 years ago, which will be on display until September. though the time the body is on view for veneration may be extended to a year before it is covered.

The shrine receives over seven million visitors a year and the Capuchins of San Giovanni are anticipating large numbers of visitors to St Pio's tomb.

The friars have set up a telephone line so that pilgrims can reserve a time and a day to see the saint's body. Those who do not make reservations have to queue and take their chance on seeing the newly constructed tomb between the hours of 7 am and 7 pm.

By Wednesday last week some 750,000 pilgrims had already booked reservations to venerate St Pio's remains.

In his homily Cardinal Martins said that the veneration of St Pio's relics should serve as a reminder that the saints were real people who lived for God.

He said: "The body is here, but Padre Pio is not just a body. In fact, he who lived in full union with the crucified Jesus now lives in absolute communion with the risen Jesus.

"That which we will see is a dead body, no longer animated by that breath which God the Creator breathed into the primordial clay. Facing the mystery of death, we are called to understand that that which we see does not sum up everything about human existence."

The cardinal also said: "Looking at his mortal remains, we remember all the good he accomplished in our midst through this body. The relics of those who sleep in the Lord - and of the saints in a special way - invite us to look toward the future. They call us to renew our faith in the resurrection of the flesh."

St Pio, known to millions around the world as Padre Pio, was an Italian Capuchin whose fervent love of Christ and the Virgin Mary brought him much admiration. Considered by many as the greatest mystic of modern times, St Pio is said to have received full stigmata.

His body was exhumed in a three-hour service in the late hours of March 2 in order to check the state of decay and allow for the veneration of the saint's relics.

The friars said that the body was in "fair condition" and that St Pio's hands were particularly well preserved. Archbishop Domenico D'Ambrosio, the papal delegate for the shrine, said that St Pio's hands "looked like they had just undergone a manicure".

The skull and parts of the upper body showed serious signs of decay.

The shrine hired the London-based Gems Studios to create a silicone death mask for the body.

Pope John Paul II beatified Padre Pio, who was born Francesco Forgione in 1887 in Pietrelcina, in 1999.

St Pio's canonisation in 2002 drew half a million people to St Peter's Square, one of the largest crowds ever to attend a canonisation.

The saint died in San Giovanni Rotondo, where he lived for the last 52 years of his life, on September 23 1968, clutching his rosary and uttering "Jesus, Mary". There were no signs of the stigmata on the body, which some took to be a miracle while others deemed it evidence of fraud.