TRUMP'S ORDER TO RELEASE FILES ON JFK MAY VINDICATE PADRE PIO'S VISION OF JKF IN HEAVEN

I was exhilarated when I heard about President Trumps's executive order to release thousands of classified files on the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. The Donald has wasted no time; God bless and reward him, and he has assured us, "everything will be revealed." But I wonder if our President knows that after JFK was murdered in cold blood, his guts splashed on his wife's raspberry Pink Chanel suit, that Padre Pio said the late president had gone to Heaven. On the morning following the assassination, Pio announced to Padre Aurelio that there was no need to pray for JKF because he said the late president was already in paradise. 

Pio had the gift of seeing souls in Heaven, Hell and Purgatory, and that he asserted with such certainty JFK was already in paradise provokes a strong reaction from people of all political and religious convictions. I've seen first hand their faces become apoplectic and they mention in fine detail examples of JFK's lustfulness and cravings for sex. JFK is painted as a sex addict, the descriptions of his rumored dalliances make for soft-porn. I am not a JFK apologist and even home movies made of him back in the day show a fellow who was libidinous. A Catholic does not need to be hardline to hold the opinion that JFK needed a lot of cleansing in the purgatorial flames to be pure enough to go through the pearly gates. That Pio said he'd gone in, less than a day after he was slain, is remarkable considering JFK's reputation and also Pio's, because the stigmatist was known to say that even some of the best souls got long sentences in Purgatory. 

Down through the years I've gotten requests from readers to disprove that Pio made this stunning claim. I've been studying Pio's life for 25 years, ever since the second time he appeared to me when I was 15 (it's in my book if you are interested). I've definitely found occasions when Pio was misquoted or when something he said seemed to have gotten muddled. For example, I do not credit the alleged quote where Pio was meant to have said he didn't believe many souls go to Hell. We pray ardently that many souls don't go there, but Pio could see into Hell and it would have been disingenuous for him to claim that he didn't really know the size of the population, when he frequently made mention of his visions of Hell and its occupants. There is also the question that some people close to Pio were more reliable than others in terms of how accurate they were in reporting Pio's statements. 

It was Padre Aurelio who reported Pio saying JFK had gone up, and Aurelio gets a gold star for being very prudent and even discrete to a fault when it came to repeating Pio's insights. There is also the fact that Pio revealed this vision during the worst persecution of his life, when he was under attack from 3 fronts; his own spiritual children, his fellow friars and the Vatican. Pio had become wary of saying anything of intrigue. A spiritual daughter had sworn under oath that Pio had been in a sexual relationship with her, before he threw her aside for his disciple, Cleonice Morcaldi. With Pio under serious suspicion of sexual misconduct, he was hardly likely to say JFK had gone to Heaven unless he was absolutely sure. His enemies, which were at their most numerous, could have claimed Pio was protecting one who had similar proclivities. 

The crux is that Pio said JFK had gone to Heaven without hours of his death, and here, I believe we may take heart in the astounding efficacy of prayer and most especially that at a minimum over 1,000 Holy Masses were offered for his soul in Ireland alone, the morning after his death. Pio was known to say, "Let's empty Purgatory with our prayers." His own family did not canonize JFK and my prayer card (top and bottom of this post) is their request for prayer for him to reach Heaven. 

There is some evidence JFK went to confession hours before bullets punctured his head and neck. It is my hope that the files on his assassination will shine a fine light on this; that we'll know once and for all if Kennedy had a spotless shriven soul on the day of his death. 

The pictures accompanying this post are mine, and I am putting them in the public domain, with the hope that more cards like this are made in our era, so the souls in Purgatory may benefit. 

One source for Padre Pio telling Padre Aurelio that JFK had gone to Heaven less than a day after his death is Bernard C. Ruffin's Padre Pio, The True Story, Our Sunday Visitor, 2018,  page 437.