PADRE PIO ONLY EVER OFFERED THE TRADITIONAL LATIN MASS

On Wednesday, August 10th, 1910, the 23 year-old seminarian Pio and his mother Giuseppa climbed aboard a horse and buggy. The driver cracked the whip and they set off for Benevento, the nearest city. They traveled over a bumpy dirt road and felt the wooden wheels roll their way through the soft earth that was melted to a congealed paste under the sun on one of the most sweltering days of the year. 

Giuseppa was resplendent in her white dress and glistening white veil. This was the day when she was to honor the solemn promise she had made to St Francis on the day her son had been born. On the day she held her newborn son in her arms, she had promised St Francis that if he interceded for him to live, she would give him anything he asked of her. The Poverello of Assisi had asked for her son to join his religious order. And the day had come when she was to hand over her son to St Francis forever - Pio was about to be ordained a Franciscan. 

The horse and buggy stopped outside Benevento cathedral, and mother and son beheld the grey Romanesque facade of the duomo. Once inside, Pio went face down before the altar and was ordained "Padre Pio" by Archbishop Paolo Schinosi. 

Pio could now do what he had spent his life longing to do: Offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. He offered his first Traditional Latin Mass on August 14th, 1910, in the church of his home village. Pio's spiritual direction, Padre Agostino gave the sermon because Pio had not been given permission to preach. There were concerns among Pio's superiors that he lacked sufficient theological education to lead the faithful by way of sermons. He had missed many classes during his seminary years because he had been so sick. In fact, Pio was being ordained early at the age of 23 because they worried he was dying. Pio could not preach and could not hear confessions, but he was given full permission to offer the Tridentine Latin Mass, and for the rest of his 58 years of priesthood, this was the only rite of Mass that he ever offered. In the entirety of his priesthood, Pio offered over 21,000 Traditional Latin Masses. 

There has been some debate generated recently as to whether Padre Pio offered the "New Rite" or "Novus Ordo" in the final days of his life before he died on September 23rd, 1968. Director of Mass of the Ages, Cameron O'Hearn asked this recently in one of his videos, but I do not have his contact information to tell him that Pio never offered the Novus Ordo. And in the wake of Traditionis Custodes, there is more interest in the subject of the Traditional Latin and whether or not Padre Pio, the greatest mystic of the 20th century ever replaced it with the Novus Ordo. I grant that there is grounds for confusion. 

Pio died in 1968, and in the years before he died, there were various texts or missals of the New Rite published that foreshadowed the ultimate Novus Ordo.  For one thing, there was the 1965 "transitional Missal". Once Pio requested of a fellow priest - Padre Pellegrino Funicelli - that he get him a copy of one such missal. Padre Pellegrino obtained the text for Pio and witnessed Pio examining the missal very carefully. But on the basis of how closely Pio was studying the missal in the confines of his monastic cell, Pellegrino made a mistake and presumed that Pio went on to offer the New Rite of Mass and he publicized this to be the case among Pio's followers. But in 1965, the superior of the friary, the Franciscan in charge of both Pellegrino and Pio, Padre Carmelo requested and received permission from Cardinal Ottaviani of the Holy Office for Pio to be able to continue to offer the Traditional Latin Mass exclusively. 

Cardinal Ottaviani gave Pio permission to offer the Traditional Latin Mass 'til he died, because of three reasons: Pio's poor health, his old age and his failing eyesight. Even if Padre Pio had wanted to learn the Novus Ordo, he was having times of  blindness that were not owing entirely to his old age, rather Pio had times of blindness in response to his desire to be blind. There were times when Padre Pio needed to see and see well, and his eyesight was returned, and there were times when Pio was temporarily blind. He much preferred being without sight. 

To be clear, Pio had periodic bouts of blindness in his last three years of life. His helper and carer, Padre Alessio attested to this fact. Yes, the times when Pio was without sight started a bit before 1965, and may be thought of as a dire suffering, but Pio had always resented his eyesight, and had many things to say on the "blessed" nature of being blind and not being able to see the "filth of the world". One of his most astounding insights was: "The eye is the organ that brings us into the most sin." The only time Pio was seen to be the tiniest bit envious was when he was talking with his blind friend, Pietro Cugino, and Pio told him how much he wished he could be like him - blind. 

Well, it was mostly on the basis of the way Pio's eyesight would mysteriously disappear and then come back again that he was allowed to offer the Traditional Latin Mass exclusively. But in his last days he was compelled to offer Mass in a seated position, and he agreed to offer Mass versus populum or facing the people. Pio agreed to this out of obedience. But his superiors had always leniency shown to Padre Pio for slight failures to execute the rubrics of the Traditional Latin Mass in a less than perfect manner. Owing to the stigmata, the wounds of Christ that Pio carried, Pio was in absolute agony during Holy Mass and he once confided in one of his closest disciples that he suffered all the pains of crucifixion. 

Even under the strictest decrees of obedience, Pio was not able to offer the Mass deftly and nimbly because his body was wracked in excruciating pain. 100 years ago this summer, when Pio was 34 and had been marked with the piercings of Our Lord's crucifixion for 3 years, he was subject to his first severe Vatican inspection. The archbishop who spent time observing him reserved his harshest criticisms of Pio for the way he offered Mass, his main issue being that Pio failed to finish certain actions at the altar properly. No allowance was made for Pio's extreme pain, but that was likely because Pio had made no complaint. Instead, the archbishop wrote in his formal report that Pio's lack of deftness at the altar was because he was a poorly trained Southern Italian friar. 

Several decades after he had been censured for the way he offered Mass, he was on the eve of his death, and he was preparing to offer his very last Mass. Previously he had agreed to offer a High Mass, or a sung Mass, but he asked his superior that he be exempted from offering his very last High Mass. Instead Pio had wanted to offer a short, low Mass. But his superiors refused his request and they commanded him to offer one last High Mass. Under obedience, Pio offered the Mass before a congregations of many thousands. 

It wasn't that his profound love of the Most Holy Sacrifice was flagging, perish the thought, but he was deathly ill, his health was failing fast and he was to die hours later. The reason was that Pio thought he might not have the strength to offer a High Mass and that he'd collapse. There was every chance, humanly speaking that this could happen, he had to be carried onto the altar and the priests surrounding him watched him for fear his legs gave way and the Sacred Species were dashed to the ground. During the Consecration, Pio had to lean on his elbows. Yet after the consecration, Pio was seen levitating several inches off the ground.  

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C. Bernard Ruffin remains the best biographer of Padre Pio and he collected the evidence in his book, Padre Pio: The True Story, that confirms Padre Pio only ever offered the Tridentine Latin Mass. But Bernard was not especially amenable to the Traditional Latin Mass. I corresponded with Bernard, he held a high place in my affections, but when I arranged for a Tridentine Latin Mass to be offered for his intentions and wrote to him to tell him, he promptly cut off contact with me. I never heard from him again. When he died 2 years ago, I was sad that I hadn't managed to patch things up with him. I do not write this to disparage Bernard, but only to point out that he was not devoted to the TLM, and not massaging the life-story of Padre Pio to fit a narrative to curry favor with Traditional Catholics like me. Rather, he was objectively presenting the fact that Padre Pio only ever offered the Tridentine Latin Mass in spite of Bernard's own apprehension about the Traditional Latin Mass. 

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Bernard Ruffin's Padre Pio: The True Story  is available in the Spirit Daily bookstore. Do pop over and see the refurbished bookstore site that is a treat to behold!