El Santo

Padre Pio de 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 confessing to tens of thousands of people who came to see him, attracted by his reputation for sanctity and by the many miracles and extraordinary events that surrounded his life. Above all, the stigma, which he received when he was very young and made him live in his own flesh the Passion of Christ. John Paul II elevated him to the altars in 2002, before the largest attendance ever recorded in a canonization. And since then his name, which was already massively revered in Italy, has spread throughout the land. 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.