Editing Stigmata (section)

===Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina===
[[File:Padre Pio of Pietrelcina with the stigmata.jpg|thumb|A young [[Padre Pio]] showing the stigmata]]
For over fifty years, Padre [[Padre Pio|Pio of Pietrelcina]] reported stigmata which were studied by several 20th-century physicians, whose independence from the Church is not known.<ref name="time1">
{{Cite news
 | title = The Stigmatist
 | journal = [[Time Magazine]]
 | date = 19 December 1949
 | url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,855088,00.html
 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080501181214/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,855088,00.html
 | archive-date = May 1, 2008
 | access-date = 2008-01-19
}}
</ref><ref name="time2">
{{Cite news
 | title = A Padre's Patience
 | journal = [[Time Magazine]]
 | date = 24 April 1964
 | url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,870915,00.html
 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070930114430/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,870915,00.html
 | archive-date = September 30, 2007
 | access-date = 2008-01-19
}}
</ref><ref name="clairval">
{{cite web
 | last =  Marie osb
 | first = Dom Antoine
 | title = Letter on Blessed Pader Pio: Stigmata – Sacraments of Penance and Eucharist – Suffering
 | url = http://www.clairval.com/lettres/en/2000/04/24/2260400.htm
 | date = 2000-04-24
 | access-date = 2006-09-27
}}
</ref>
The observations were reportedly inexplicable and the wounds never became infected.<ref name="time1"/><ref name="time2"/><ref>Michael Freze, 1989, ''They Bore the Wounds of Christ: The Mystery of the Sacred Stigmata'', OSV Publishing {{ISBN|0-87973-422-1}} pp. 283–285.</ref> His wounds healed once, but reappeared.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.britannica.com/ebc/article-9375317 |title=Padre Pio |encyclopedia=Britannica.com |date=1968 |access-date=2012-02-27}}</ref> The wounds were examined by Luigi Romanelli, chief physician of the City Hospital of [[Barletta]], for about one year. The physician Angelo Maria Merla noted that the wounds were not [[Tuberculosis|tubercular]] in origin but could not make an official diagnosis without further tests.<ref name="Ruffin 1991">Ruffin, Barnard. (1991). ''Padre Pio: The True Story''. OSV Press. pp. 160–178. {{ISBN|0-87973-673-9}}</ref> The surgeon [[Giorgio Festa]], a private practitioner, also examined them in 1920 and 1925.<ref name="Ruffin 1991"/> Professor [[Giuseppe Bastianelli]], physician to [[Pope Benedict XV]], examined the wounds, but no report of his examinations was made. Pathologist [[Amico Bignami]] of the [[Sapienza University of Rome|University of Rome]] also observed the wounds, describing them as shallow. Festa, who had originally agreed with Bignami, later described the wounds as superficial when covered with a scab.<ref name="Ruffin 1991"/> Giorgio Festa noted that "at the edges of the lesions, the skin is perfectly normal and does not show any sign of [[edema]], of penetration, or of redness, even when examined with a good magnifying glass".<ref name="Ruffin 1991"/> Alberto Caserta took [[X-ray]]s of the hands in 1954 and found no abnormality in the bone structure.<ref name="Ruffin 1991"/> [[Giuseppe Sala (physician)|Giuseppe Sala]] who worked as a physician for Pio between 1956 and 1968 commented that tests revealed his blood had no signs of abnormality.<ref name="Ruffin 1991"/>

There were both religious and non-religious critics who accused Padre Pio of faking his stigmata, saying he used [[Phenol|carbolic acid]] to make the wounds. The historian Sergio Luzzatto recounted that in 1919, Maria De Vito (the cousin of the local pharmacist Valentini Vista at [[Foggia]]) testified that the young Pio bought carbolic acid and the great quantity of four grams of [[Veratridine|veratrine]] "without presenting any medical prescription whatsoever".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Luzzatto |first1=Sergio |title=Padre Pio: Miracles and Politics in a Secular Age |publisher=Henry Holt and Company |isbn=978-1-4299-4645-2 |pages=91–92}}</ref><ref name="telegraph">Quote: Maria De Vito said, "I was an admirer of Padre Pio and I met him for the first time on July 31, 1919...he gave me personally an empty bottle, and asked if I would act as a chauffeur to transport it back from Foggia to San Giovanni Rotondo with four grams of pure carbolic acid. ... He explained that the acid was for disinfecting syringes for injections. He also asked for other things, such as Valda pastilles." {{cite news|last=Moore|first=Malcolm| title = Italy's Padre Pio 'faked his stigmata with acid'| date = 2007-10-24 | url = https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1567216/Italys-Padre-Pio-faked-his-stigmata-with-acid.html|access-date = 2012-04-25| work=The Daily Telegraph}}.</ref>  Pio maintained that the carbolic acid was used to sterilize syringes used for medical treatments and that after being subjected to a practical joke where veratrine was mixed with snuff tobacco, causing uncontrollable sneezing after ingestion, he decided to acquire his own quantity of the substance in order to play the same joke on his confreres.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Luzzatto |first1=Sergio |title=Padre Pio: Miracles and Politics in a Secular Age |publisher=Henry Holt and Company |isbn=978-1-4299-4645-2 |page=103}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Castelli |first1=Francesco |title=Padre Pio under investigation: the secret Vatican files |date=2011 |publisher=Ignatius Press |location=San Francisco |isbn=978-1-58617-405-7 |pages=25, 114}}</ref>

[[Amico Bignami]] in a report wrote that the wounds were caused by "[[Neurosis|neurotic]] [[necrosis]]". He suggested they had been inflicted unconsciously by [[suggestion]] and artificially maintained by [[iodine]] that Pio had used as a disinfectant.<ref name="Ruffin 1991"/> In 1922, physician [[Agostino Gemelli]] went to visit Padre Pio, but Gemelli was denied the right to examine the stigmata without an authorization from the Holy Office. Gemelli, irritated and offended for not being allowed to examine the stigmata, wrote that Pio was a hysteric and his stigmata were self-induced, not of supernatural origin.{{sfnp|Luzzatto|2011|p=59}}<ref name="Higgens 2006">Higgins, Michael W. (2006). ''Stalking the Holy: The Pursuit of Saint Making''. Anansi Press. p. 129. {{ISBN|0-88784-181-3}}</ref> Gemelli also speculated that his wounds were kept open with carbolic acid.<ref name="Higgens 2006"/> Giorgio Festa, who examined the stigmata of the friar on October 28, 1919, wrote in his report that they "are not the product of a trauma of external origin, nor are they due to the application of potently irritating chemicals".<ref>{{cite book| first1 = Saverio |last1=Gaeta |first2= Andrea|last2= Tornielli| title= Padre Pio, l'ultimo sospetto: la verità sul frate delle stimmate|publisher= Piemme| location= Casale Monferrato (Alessandria)|date= 2008|language=it}}</ref>

Throughout his life, Pio had hidden his wounds by wearing fingerless [[glove]]s. At death there were no wounds, only "unblemished skin".<ref name="Nickell 2001">[[Joe Nickell|Nickell, Joe]]. (2001). ''Real-Life X-Files: Investigating the Paranormal''. University of Kentucky Press. pp. 276–288. {{ISBN|0-8131-2210-4}}</ref>