Dr Glenville Ash­by

This, an era where the very sur­viv­abil­i­ty of the Church is threat­ened, a time when the Church is rocked by sex abuse and mon­ey laun­der­ing scan­dals; wrecked by guilt over past mis­deeds-against in­dige­nous peo­ples, women, blacks, ho­mo­sex­u­als and Jews, this sure­ly is a de­ci­sive pe­ri­od that has forced the Vat­i­can to go on the de­fen­sive-its cred­i­bil­i­ty, all but shat­tered.Padre Pio Un­der In­ves­ti­ga­tion: The Se­cret Vat­i­can Files, will not sin­gle hand­ed­ly ex­punge the sins of the fa­thers, but for the faith­ful and the wan­der­ing flock, it may re­store the ec­sta­t­ic splen­dor of Catholi­cism.Francesco Castel­li's In­ves­ti­ga­tion re­veals the life of a stig­mat­ic Ital­ian priest, Padre Pio (born, Francesco For­gione,) who cel­e­brat­ed mass in the small non­de­script town of San Gio­van­ni Ro­ton­do. He is unas­sum­ing, pi­ous and obe­di­ent, a Ca­pu­cian fri­ar who, af­ter a vis­i­ta­tion by Je­sus, mys­te­ri­ous­ly bears the marks of His pas­sion. Blood pours from his palms, his sides, and his feet-with lit­tle ci­ca­tri­sa­tion. We lat­er learn that his right shoul­der is in­dent­ed and bloody (the ex­act area up­on which the Cross was car­ried by Je­sus.)

These "ex­u­da­tions" (so re­ferred be­cause ma­jor per­fo­ra­tions to the skin are ab­sent,) seem to change in size and shape. A sweet and per­va­sive fra­grance are al­so at­trib­uted to these wounds. Fa­ther Pio is al­so said to have mas­tered the art of bilo­ca­tion-be­ing at two places si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, as he ad­min­is­ters heal­ing to his grow­ing flock. His bouts with hy­per­ther­mia (118 de­grees at times), while in these ec­sta­t­ic states baf­fle in­ves­ti­ga­tors. He grows in stature, be­com­ing a re­gion­al phe­nom­e­non. He be­comes the in­ter­ces­sor of the faith­ful, a near cult of per­son­al­i­ty is nigh at hand.Mean­while, Padre Pio con­tin­ues to pass gru­elling in­quiries. His vows of pover­ty, chasti­ty, and obe­di­ence are un­chal­lenged. His hu­mil­i­ty is un­ques­tioned and the In­quisi­tor sent by the Vat­i­can is about to con­clude that any ques­tion of Padre's pos­si­ble neu­ropathol­o­gy is vac­u­ous at best. Such a dis­or­der can­not sur­vive the rigid­i­ty of ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal life, we are led to be­lieve.

Mir­a­cles do abound. There is a per­ma­nence to the heal­ing ad­min­is­tered by Padre. The charge of mass sug­ges­tion on the gullible, of­ten times lev­eled against mod­ern day evan­gel­i­cal preach­ers aris­es, but the good priest breathes and em­bod­ies the mys­tic life, the seal of au­then­tic­i­ty. Padre Pio is for re­al. Castel­li, in un­earthing the find­ings of Padre Pio (be­at­i­fied in 1999 and canon­ised three years lat­er,) in­tends to dis­pel lin­ger­ing ques­tions on the truth­ful­ness of the fa­mous saint. Castel­li us­es the find­ings of Mon­sign­or Rossi in 1921 as the prin­ci­pal source of his un­der­tak­ing. Not sur­pris­ing­ly, In­ves­ti­ga­tion can prove to be as te­dious and repet­i­tive, as the source from which it was culled. But there are spurts of in­trigue and won­der­ment, as Padre Pio is sub­ject­ed to in­tense ques­tion­ing by Mon­sign­or Rossi of the Holy Of­fice (now known as the Con­gre­ga­tion of the Doc­trine of the Faith.) Castel­li is an un­flinch­ing be­liev­er: "We can state with­out fear of de­nial - I think, that few events have con­tributed in the cen­tu­ry that end­ed not long ago, that will have an ever­last­ing echo, to save the faith of the peo­ple of God, to bring back Je­sus to so many of the doubt­ful and the un­cer­tain."

But there­in lies the prob­lem. Castel­li im­me­di­ate­ly wraps the Padre in Catholic ex­clu­siv­i­ty, sug­gest­ing that his mir­a­cles are very much Catholic, and thus, unique­ly spe­cial. In preach­ing to the choir, In­ves­ti­ga­tion los­es its po­ten­tial­ly rev­o­lu­tion­ary and uni­ver­sal ap­peal.He writes: "We must keep in mind that the stig­ma­ta are a phe­nom­e­non be­long­ing to Catholi­cism, since Protes­tants do not ap­pre­ci­ate cer­tain "mirac­u­lous" as­pects of faith, while the Or­tho­dox tend to ex­pe­ri­ence dif­fer­ent charisms." If the au­thor had on­ly re­moved his Catholic lens he might have broad­ened the Padre's im­por­tance at a time when it's sore­ly need­ed.The au­thor makes lit­tle ef­fort to ex­plain the phe­nom­e­nol­o­gy of the stig­ma­ta of­fer­ing the clas­si­cal con­cept of "di­vine mys­ter­ies."

"Padri Pio was, and still is a mys­tery that on­ly finds its ex­pla­na­tion in the eyes of faith. He is a "sign" as we were say­ing, that can be recog­nised and in­ter­pret­ed by who­ev­er has al­ready en­coun­tered Je­sus Christ..." he writes.But just a cur­so­ry study of saints, in every re­li­gious genre re­veals that mys­ter­ies might not be in­ex­plic­a­ble af­ter all. He­le­na Blavatsky's Isis Un­veiled and oth­ers theo­soph­i­cal writ­ers ex­haust this sub­ject.Padre's mir­a­cles are no dif­fer­ent from those dis­played by fakirs and sad­hus of the East. Of course, they have not pro­duced Christ's pas­sions, but thau­matur­gi­cal feats, re­flec­tive of their re­li­gious tra­di­tions are not un­com­mon. Padre's spir­i­tu­al ex­pe­ri­ence, of a vi­su­al and au­di­to­ry na­ture are al­so not un­com­mon."Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the au­thor fails to take that gi­ant leap and present Padre as a re­li­gious icon who would be very much at ease with con­tem­po­rary move­ments, help­ing to dis­miss the be­lief in some quar­ters, that the Church is an anachro­nis­tic, mori­bund in­sti­tu­tion.

On a more mun­dane lev­el, Castel­li's work re­veals that be­hind the clois­tered set­ting of the Church, and I am sure in every re­li­gious in­sti­tu­tion- pol­i­tics, with all it's du­plic­i­ty is rife. That Padre finds him­self the tar­get of vi­cious and un­sub­stan­ti­at­ed ru­mors, by his own broth­ers of the cloth, on­ly proves that a life of re­nun­ci­a­tion does not light­en our her­culean bat­tle with in­her­ent dark­ness.Un­ques­tion­ably, In­ves­ti­ga­tion re­volves around Padre Pio, but I can­not help re­it­er­at­ing how much the au­thor has hand­cuffed the enor­mous po­ten­tial of his work, by fail­ing to present the fri­ar as a mas­ter of es­o­teric lore- an at­tribute nei­ther patent­ed or fran­chised by the Church, or any re­li­gious in­sti­tu­tion, for that mat­ter.To­day, the Church sore­ly needs the likes of the mys­tic Padre. Re­gret­tably, such au­gust per­son­ages are rare finds, mak­ing the repack­ag­ing and mar­ket­ing of this holy man a mat­ter of ex­i­gence to a trou­bled world in spir­i­tu­al de­cay. Francesco Castel­li's in­ter­est­ing un­der­tak­ing missed a gold­en op­por­tu­ni­ty.

• Dr Glenville Ash­by

For­eign cor­re­spon­dent

The Guardian Me­dia Group.

glenvil­leash­by@gmail.com.