El Santo

Padre Pio of Pietrelcina was born in 1887 and died in 1968 in the Capuchin convent of San Giovanni Rotondo. There he dedicated half a century, almost exclusively, to hearing the confessions of tens of thousands of people who came to see him, attracted by his reputation for holiness and by the numerous miracles and extraordinary events that surrounded his life. Above all, the stigmata, which he received at a very young age and which made him experience the Passion of Christ in his own flesh. John Paul II canonized him in 2002, before the largest attendance ever recorded at a canonization. And since then his name, which was already massively venerated in Italy, has spread throughout the world. José María Zavala, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his death, writes his most personal book about a character who will still give much to talk about.