GREENSBORO — St. Pius X Church welcomed the spirit and relics of St. Pio of Pietrelcina the weekend of April 14.
“It was a beautiful weekend,” said Lindsay Kohl, the parish’s director of formational studies. Kohl, along with parishioners Rita and Mario Pugliese, planned and coordinated Padre Fortunato Grottola’s visit to the Greensboro parish.
Pictured: Parishioners at St. Pius X Church in Greensboro were blessed by a relic of St. Pio of Pietrelcina during a recent visit from Capuchin Friar Fortunato Grottola, now the superior guardian in Pietrelcina, where the saint once lived. (Photos by Georgianna Penn | Catholic News Herald)
A Capuchin friar, Padre Fortunato helps to oversee the Shrine of St. Padre Pio in southern Italy and has most recently been assigned the superior guardian in Pietrelcina, where St. Pio once lived.
With four weekend Masses, an Italian dinner celebration, time with the youth and a seniors luncheon, the people of the parish felt truly blessed by Padre Fortunato’s visit.
The friar also visited the sick who reside at Maryfield in High Point, which was very important to him.
“He visited one of our very sick parishioners between Masses,” Kohl added.
St. Pio of Pietrelcina, known simply as Padre Pio, is dearly loved by many, especially in Italy.
During his time in Greensboro, Padre Fortunato shared many stories of the great saint, stigmatist and mystic who died in 1968. As a child, Fortunato even met Padre Pio, when a school trip afforded him the opportunity to shake Padre Pio’s hand which bore the wounds of Christ.
Padre Fortunato brought several relics with him which were used during the blessings after each Mass: Padre Pio’s habit from 1918, the one he wore shortly after having received the stigmata. A wool scarf he used to cover his head and shoulders, as he is so often pictured. A wool glove which he used to cover his hand so the stigmata would not always be visible to people. Blood that flowed from his wounded side, wrapped by a linen he used for this purpose.
Monsignor Anthony Marcaccio, pastor, and Rita and Mario Pugliese and their daughter Sara are pictured with a scarf that once belonged to St. Pio. Sara said she felt drawn to the scarf all weekend, and Padre Fortunato even gave it to her to sleep with one night when she was feeling scared.Frances Giaimo and her husband Sal were among three families who hosted an Italian celebration at the parish to welcome Padre Fortunato. Sharing recipes and expertise, the Giaimos, Errichiellos and Puglieses created a “labor of love” Italian feast for the parish and their Italian guest.
St. Pio is a saint of many gifts: family, vocations, hope and healing, parishioners described.
“What’s amazing is that there are so many parishioners here at St. Pius X who have had personal encounters with St. Pio and his many blessings,” noted St. Pius X staff member Carolyn Painley.
During an interview at the seniors’ luncheon, parishioner Janet Corrigan shared her son’s story of hope and answered prayers. Sean and Elaine Corrigan traveled to Medjugorje many years ago for the purpose of praying to the Blessed Virgin Mary to have a child. They had tried for years, but had been unable to conceive. While there, they met pro-life speaker Molly Kelly. When the Corrigans shared their reason for traveling to Medjugorje, Kelly enthusiastically told them that a priest accompanying her carried a glove of Padre Pio’s. The Corrigans arranged for a blessing, and the priest placed the glove over Elaine Corrigan’s womb and prayed. The Corrigans now have four children.
“Pray big,” Pattie Murray told her sister Joan Hennessey, who was diagnosed with a rare sarcoma in 2005. Murray, a Secular Franciscan and St. Pius X parishioner, said everyone in her family prayed to St. Pio for her sister to be healed, even taking her to the National Centre for Padre Pio in Barto, Pa., and to the St. Padre Pio Shrine in Landisville, N.J. After extensive surgeries and clinical trials, her sister’s cancer was declared in remission a year later.
“She had prayed to St. Pio – he was it,” Murray said.
Unfortunately, she continued, her sister’s cancer came back.
“Her prayer at that point was that she could see both of her daughters graduate from high school,” Murray said.
Her sister’s prayer was answered, living long enough to see them both graduate before passing away on the sixth anniversary of St. Pio’s canonization, on June 16, 2008. “That’s something many people may not see as significant, but I do,” Murray said.
“It was 1968, in Catholic grade school in Miami,” Dr. Juan Fernandez shared in an interview after the Italian feast celebration. “A group of people was going around the country talking about Padre Pio. They were trying to get signatures for his beatification and they showed a lot of pictures and talked about the miracles and the stigmata,” he said.
Young Fernandez, an eighth-grader at the school, became really impressed with Padre Pio, who had died earlier that year, and he signed the petition. “It’s hard to believe – I get choked up 50 years later – that I was able to get his blessing from the gloves that he wore,” he said.
After learning about Padre Pio, Fernandez felt called to discern the priesthood and spent time at St. John Vianney Minor Seminary in Miami.
“My high school would allow me to go and spend time there to see if I really had the vocation,” he recalled. “But God showed me a different path, to become a physician.”
Now an obstetrician and gynecologist, Fernandez has delivered approximately 10,000 babies over his 35-year medical career. After he retires in August, he and his wife will be going on the Camino de Santiago (Way of St. James) pilgrimage, he said.
After Padre Fortunato’s visit, Fernandez said he feels he is being called once again. “I don’t know what it is, but He knows my mind, my heart and my soul are open to whatever it is He wants me to do next.”
Dr. Juan Fernandez brought a statue of St. Pio to be blessed by Padre Fortunato. His devotion to the saint led him to his vocation of becoming a physician, and he has delivered almost 10,000 babies over his medical career.From vocations, to family to hope and healing, St. Pio shares a wide range of gifts with God’s people.
“Every time I talked to Padre Fortunato, I was overcome with emotion,” Kohl said. “Saints are funny. They find a way to help people.”
Rita and Mario Pugliese hosted Padre Fortunato during his visit to Greensboro.
“I feel very full,” said Rita Pugliese. “He left a peace in my house. Each time he entered my home, he would say, ‘Pace a questa casa,’” she said.
The Puglieses have a personal connection to St. Pio. Originally from Monte di Procida, a small town near Naples, Italy, Mario Pugliese’s mother met St. Pio more than 50 years ago when she was having trouble getting pregnant. She wrote him a letter and he wrote back, inviting her to a special Mass. She went to the Mass and even though it was extremely crowded, she got close enough to him to receive his blessing. He pointed to her and said, “You will have kids.” She soon had her first child, then Mario, and later a third child.
Rita Pugliese said Padre Fortunato feels part of the St. Pius X family now. He could really feel the faith and love of the parishioners and see it in their eyes, she said.
“Padre Pio in a singular way manifested so many spiritual gifts. It was a great privilege to welcome Father Fortunato to St. Pius and have him bring the spiritual legacy of this great saint to life for us,” said Monsignor Anthony Marcaccio, pastor. “Padre Pio was a powerful intercessor in life, and we know this to be even more true since he has joined the company of saints. Many people at St. Pius felt that intercession in a very poignant and personal way.”
— Georgianna Penn, correspondent
CHARLOTTE — They come from along the Red Sea, where their uniquely East African traditions blend with incense and the sounds of drums and Catholic prayers chanted in an ancient Semitic tongue.
They are Eritrean Catholics, and they have found a home at St. Gabriel Church, where they meet monthly to celebrate the Divine Liturgy, or Mass.
About a hundred Eritrean Catholics gathered April 7 for their latest Eucharistic celebration, in which they commemorated Easter during a two-hour-long Mass in the Ge’ez rite, a liturgy rooted in the Church of Alexandria in Egypt. Men sat on the left side of the church, women on the right, wearing white robes covering their heads. Most of the Mass was chanted in Ge’ez, an ancient, dead language now used exclusively for liturgical celebrations.
The celebration was led by Father Kidanemariam Hadgu Gebrehiwot, who simply goes by Father Kidane. He travels from Atlanta every first Saturday of the month to offer Mass for the Eritrean Catholics in Charlotte, who number about 300.
Father Kidane comes from the Archeparchy (Archdiocese) of Asmara, Eritrea, the mother see of the Eritrean Catholic Church. The priest of 27 years serves at Corpus Christi Church in Stone Mountain, Ga., as well as serving as vicar for the Catholic Geez Rite community in the Atlanta area. Besides traveling regularly between Atlanta and Charlotte, he also ministers to Eritrean Catholics in Dallas, Texas.
Father Kidane says he is grateful to the Diocese of Charlotte and to St. Gabriel Parish for welcoming the Eritrean Catholics and helping them to practice their faith.
“We have felt very blessed and welcomed by all,” he says. “They have given us not only a space to celebrate, but also a space to share our culture.”
George Joseph, one of the organizers of the Eritrean community in Charlotte, arrived in 1992, shortly a border conflict erupted between Eritrea and Ethiopia. Like many of the immigrants, Joseph had to flee the region, which over several decades has been stricken by war, famine and drought. After earning a degree in finance from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, he worked at several banks before establishing himself in the convenience store and real estate industries.
“I’ve been in Charlotte for 25 years. And I’ve seen years in which there was nothing to remind us where we were born. We had no leaders, no place to go,” Joseph recalls. Finally, after getting better organized, the local Eritreans sought help from the Archdiocese of Atlanta and began receiving visits from Father Kidane, who “for the community has been a blessing.”
“Our main objective is not to promote our rite, but to exercise our faith and be able to participate in the sacraments without any obstacle or restriction. This parish and the diocese have given us the opportunity we were looking for,” Joseph emphasizes.
Dawit Michael, who has lived in the United States for 10 years, adds, “One of the difficulties that immigrants have is finding a community that we feel part of, and the Church is one of those instruments of integration. At St. Gabriel they welcomed us, and here, in addition to the Mass, we program other activities for children and young people.”
Passing down the faith to their children and keeping young adults active in their faith is important, leaders say. At the April 7 Mass, the presence of many children and young adults was noticeable.
Erin Joseph, a student who was born in the United States to Eritrean immigrant parents, says he feels drawn to his Eritrean Catholic heritage and the Ge’ez rite liturgy. “I like it. It is very attractive. The music is different, more cheerful; people applaud. I feel very comfortable, like I’m in my own home.”
The opportunity to come together each month is about more than attending Mass, Joseph says. It’s about building community among what are mostly recent immigrants, many of whom work in convenience stores or drive taxis. The time spent in fellowship after Mass is important, he says, because “it is the way we meet, we greet each other, we see ourselves as a family.”
Father Kidane is hopeful about the prospects of the small but faith-filled Eritrean Catholic community in Charlotte. Perhaps, one day, they will be able to build a church of their own, but in the meantime, they appreciate the hospitality they have received from St. Gabriel Parish.
“Everything is in the hands of God,” he says.
— Cesar Hurtado, Hispanic Reporter
