Catholicism's most beloved saint today - Padre Pio - was he suspected of sexual abuse?

Was Padre Pio the stigmatist monk a sexual abuser and a pervert? If he was then it was not and is not the first time the Catholic Church made a saint out of a devout man like that.  We know of saints who covered up sex abuse in religious circles and some canonised figures were accused and the victims were just dismissed as gossippers. Back to Pio.  The ages of the abused females are unclear in some cases.  But statistically some of them had to be children.  According to various indications some of them were.

John XXIII got feedback on Padre Pio thanks to the Vatican investigator Monsignor Parente. He wrote about how the Monsignor was devastated to find that Pio was sexually unchaste. “I am sorry for PP, who has a soul to be saved, and I pray for him intensely. What happened – that is, the discovery because of the films – si vera sunt quae referentur (if it is true what they say) – of [Pio's] intimate and incorrect relations with the women who constitute his Pretorian guard, which even now stands firm around him, leads one to think of a vast disaster of souls which has been diabolically set up to discredit the Holy Church in the world, and especially in Italy. In the calmness of my spirit I humbly persist in believing that the Lord faciat cum tentatione provandum (is doing this as a test of faith), and that from this immense deception will come a teaching of clarity and health for a great many.”

The alleged evidence from secret recordings that Pio was having sex has been lost. John XXIII is believed to have taken it seriously. It is thought by many that the evidence is valid for nobody would dare say a man with a bleeding body whether the bleeds were magic or self-inflicted was that naughty. If he had sexual partners then they were severely manipulated or he was not as deformed by cuts as he wanted people to think.

Monsignor Carlo Maccari was the chief force behind the suspicions about Pio's sexual sins. He had the microphones planted in the men's confessional boxes and in the rooms where Pio met with the public. The Monsignor probably was surprised that Pio seemed to be after women!! Monsignor Carlo Maccari on his deathbed supposedly repented for suspecting Pio of unchastity! We have only the word of Pio's cronies for that!

There were allegations of sexual abuse committed by Pio against vulnerable women and not all of these reports can be debunked though some of them were. You would expect that for when an abuser is active some liars will leap on the bandwagon.

And this debunking speaks more of faith in those who conducted the investigation and what they were told rather than in their being correct. Anybody that knows people who have been in trouble with the law will know how reliable that is and the law is so easily manipulated by people withholding information! I’m being sarcastic here.

He possibly didn’t do anything but how do you know? The man did slap people – the crime of assault (page 153, The Book of Miracles). When you would do that you would sexually grope if you were that way inclined.

And Pio’s own defence though unquestionably honest at times may not have been all the time – for the man was definitely dodgy. Mud sticks and it should stick in this case.

Archbishop Gagliardi is blamed by pro-Pio people as having started most of the rumours which strains credulity because a powerful and intelligent Churchman can find better ways to ruin somebody than that way. A false accusation of heresy would have done the trick provided the stage was set so that at best it could not be disproven and would not cause a rumpus that would lead to the civil courts. Why did the Archbishop who would have known there was a culture of sex abuse cover-up in the Church try to open a can of worms by acccusing Pio of sexual abuse unless he was sure it was true? If he wanted to lie there was an easier way.

Other Pios have been abusers.

A New Pio
 
Father Gino Burresi is someone alive today who makes exactly the same claims as Pio. Yet it is known that this man is not a saint. And charges of sexual abuse have been made against him and the Vatican has banned his ministry. Gino still has his supporters though. When Gino could get away with his claims for so long today how much easier could it have been for Pio who lived decades ago in a world where communication and science was less efficient to do that? And Pio was more secluded than Gino as well which helped a lot. The only reason we know that Gino is not a saint is because he (unlike Pio) got caught in such a way that there was no room for anybody to come along to credibly distort the facts and leave him smelling of roses.