The Pope, Padre Pio, and a miracle (Part I)

	Then-Cardinal Karol Wojtyla distributes communion in 1969 (Photo courtesy Felician College)

In the early 1960s, Angelo Battisti held two important positions in the Church. He was the administrator for Padre Pio’s hospital, the Casa Sollievo Della Sofferenza, located just across the piazza from the Capuchin friary at San Giovanni Rotondo. In addition, he worked in the offices of the Vatican secretary of state.

Shuttling back and forth between Rome and San Giovanni was a weekly occurrence for Battisti, and he was known as a close personal friend of Padre Pio’s. So it was not altogether unusual when, in November of 1962, he was asked by a colleague in the secretariat, Guglielmo Zannoni, to deliver an urgent letter to Padre Pio. The letter was composed by a bishop from Krakow by the name of Karol Wojtyla.

Bishop Wojtyla was in Rome as a member of the Polish episcopate that was attending the opening session of the Second Vatican Council, which had convened in October. Not long after his arrival in Rome, he received disturbing news about a close friend and collaborator, Dr. Wanda Poltawska. Wojtyla had known Poltawska and her husband Andrei from his earliest days as a priest in Krakow. She had been very active in various Catholic youth movements in Poland prior to the Second World War. But when the Nazis came to power, she was arrested and imprisoned for five years in a concentration camp, where she underwent intense sufferings. Along with other Catholic women, she was forced to submit to “medical experiments” performed by Nazi doctors at the camp.

After the war, she resumed her university studies and her involvement with Catholic youth.
At that time, Karol Wojtyla was assigned by his superiors to St. Florian parish in the center of Krakow, where he was in charge of the student chaplaincy. This enabled him to personally reach out to the younger men and women. One of ways he did this was by holding conferences to discuss theology and philosophy, areas in which he was already degreed. The popularity of his conferences drew a large following, including the young couple, Wanda and Andrei, who were pursuing careers in medicine.

The bond between the new prelate and those who attended his talks and discussions was cemented by his charisma, intelligence, and warmth. He became the spiritual leader and mentor of a close circle of friends. Soon, small groups of students, inspired to learn more about the humanitarian, social, and religious discussions that Wojtyla led, joined him on week-long mountain retreats, which included kayaking and camping. Although Poland was under Soviet communist domination, they celebrated Mass together in the open, which was forbidden by the regime.

These excursions were held a few times each year, and were usually attended by the Poltawskas. Specializing in psychiatry and the family, the couple made important contributions to the group’s discussions about the married state, making a great impression on Wojtyla. Many of their ideas were incorporated in his first non-fiction book, Love and Responsibility (1960), and eventually influenced Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae.

Padre Pio celebrates the Eucharist (Religion News Service File Photo)   Padre Pio was “truly beautiful” Father Alessio Parente, a friar who attended Padre Pio for many years, said Pio usually slept only two hours or so a night. The rest of the time, he prayed. Even in his later years, as he ate practically nothing and began to grow quite frail, he maintained a rigorous prayer routine. “Padre Pio was in constant prayer,” Father Alessio told an interviewer in 1990. “Even while talking to people, listening to them, hearing their confessions, he would sit with his hands at his side, like this. And the rosary would be moving. For Padre Pio, this was normal.” Father Alessio acknowledged then that the depth of Pio’s prayer frequently pulled the stigmatist into altered states of consciousness. “At times, he became so inebriated with the joy he received while praying that he became absorbed completely. He was truly beautiful at such times.” - From Padre Pio: An intimate portrait of a saint through the eyes of his friends by Kathleen Stauffer (Twenty-Third Publications / Catholic Digest).

The young priest Karol Wojtyla had by now lost both of his parents and his brother, and had no real family of his own. But his loneliness was assuaged by the deepening of his friendship with the Poltawskas. The couple’s own family life had been enriched with four children. Wojtyla was so close to them that they grew up calling him their uncle.

As the years progressed, Wojtyla earned two doctorates, became a university professor, and eventually was nominated auxiliary bishop of Krakow. Then, while participating in the second Vatican Council in Rome, he received the tragic news from his adopted family that Wanda had been diagnosed with an intestinal tumor. The doctors had decided to operate, and f the growth were cancerous, she was given only 18 months to live. They also told her that there was a 95 percent chance that the tumor was malignant.

When the news that his close friend and collaborator had been hospitalized reached Bishop Wojtyla, he immediately began to ask for prayers from his fellow priests, friends, and from Religious Sisters. Wojtyla prayed intensely that further tragedy would not strike this woman, who had endured five cruel years in a concentration camp. Dr. Poltawska was only 40 years old, and her four children still needed her. The Polish bishop’s thoughts soon turned to a man he had not seen for 15 years, a man whose sanctity and prayers he greatly respected.

In the long-ago summer of 1947, Wojtyla had been a priest for less than a year. He was in Rome in the midst of a two-year study program, working on his first doctorate. Extremely interested in Carmelite spirituality and mysticism, he had chosen for his dissertation topic the mystical theology of St. John of the Cross. It was in Rome that he first heard about another Catholic mystic, a Capuchin rather than a Carmelite, whose fame had not yet spread beyond the iron curtain into Poland. He was said to bear the wounds of Christ, the only priest ever to do so, and he lived only a half-day’s journey by train and bus from Rome.

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During a break in the school year, Wojtyla decided to visit this modern-day mystic, Padre Pio of Pietrelcina. He spent almost a week in San Giovanni Rotondo that summer, and was able to attend Padre Pio’s Mass and make his confession to the saint. Apparently, this was not just a casual encounter, and the two spoke together at length during Wojtyla’s stay. Their conversations gave rise to rumors in later years, after the Polish prelate had been elevated to the papacy, that Padre Pio had predicted he would become pope. The story persists, even though when the pope was asked about it on two occasions — in 1984, by the Capuchin minister general Bishop Flavio Carraro, and in 1987, by Monsignor Riccardo Ruotolo, president of Pio’s hospital, The House for the Relief of Suffering — “Papa Wojtyla” denied that Padre Pio had made such a prophecy.

Back in Rome, the news reaching Bishop Wojtyla about the condition of his dear friend Wanda Poltawska continued to be ominous. A major operation to stem the growth in her intestine now loomed a few days hence. With no time to lose, he took pen in hand and hastily wrote a short, urgent letter to Padre Pio in Latin. The letter, written on the official stationery of the diocese of Krakow, was dated November 17, 1962. Brief and to the point, the bishop pleaded:

Venerable Father,
I ask for your prayers for
a certain mother of four
young girls, who lives in
Krakow, Poland (during the
last war she spent five years
in a German concentration
camp), and now her health
and even her life are in
great danger due to cancer.
Pray that God, through the
intercession of the Most
Blessed Virgin, has mercy
on her and her family.
Most obligated in Christ,
Karol Wojtyla.

Since it was essential that the letter arrive as soon as possible, Bishop Wojtyla, acting through intermediaries, enlisted the help of Angelo Battisti in order to have it hand-delivered to Padre Pio. Battisti’s positions at the Vatican secretary of state and as the administrator for Pio’s hospital guaranteed him virtually unlimited access to the saint at almost any hour. He was told that the letter was of utmost importance, and was asked to leave at once and deliver it personally to Pio.

“I had never received such an urgent assignment,” Battisti later remarked. “I quickly went
home to get my car, and departed immediately.”

Battisti drove to the friary at San Giovanni Rotondo and headed straight for Padre Pio’s room. There, he found the priest seated with his head bowed over his chest, engrossed in prayer. The messenger held out the envelope, explaining that it dealt with a pressing matter… CD

READ THE CONCLUSION IN NEXT MONTH’S CATHOLIC DIGEST.

Frank M. Rega, a Secular Franciscan, is the author of Padre Pio and America (TAN Books).

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