Flowers fell from a helicopter as St. Pio's coffin passed

SAN GIOVANNI ROTONDO, Apulia, September 26, 1968 AD — On Thursday the open coffin of Saint Pio of Pietrelcina rode slowly down the hill from his friary into the town of San Giovanni Rotondo. It was in an open hearse, so that everyone could see him. More than a hundred thousand people had come to the town to bury him.

St. Pio was a Capuchin friar. He died on Monday at the friary of Our Lady of Grace, at the age of 81. The friary stands above the town, on the side of a mountain called Monte Gargano. St. Pio had lived there since September 4, 1916 AD.

In his early years there he left the friary a few times, once to serve in the army. After that he never left it again, not even for a day. For fifty of those years he had the stigmata, the five wounds Christ received on the cross. They were in his hands, his feet and his side, and they bled day and night.

Later that Monday the doors of the church of Our Lady of Grace, beside the friary, opened. St. Pio lay inside in an open coffin. Busloads of people filed past him, day and night, until Thursday. They were rich and poor, people who could barely walk and people who were well. Some were Italians, and some came from other countries. Father Armand Dasseville was a Capuchin who was staying at the friary that week. He wrote that pilgrims came from all over the world “to pay their last respects and to unite in sorrow over the loss of their common father, Padre Pio.”

Bedspreads in the windows

Thursday was sunny. By three in the afternoon the square in front of the church was full. So was the square in front of the hospital St. Pio had founded nearby. Then the coffin set off down the road to the town, a mile and a half. The friars who had lived with St. Pio walked in a ring around it to guard it, as a way of honouring him. The head of the whole Capuchin order walked in front.

Thousands of people stood along both sides of the road. Others leaned out of windows or climbed onto porches and rooftops to see him go by.

The people of San Giovanni Rotondo had hung their best bedspread or their best tablecloth from their windowsills. Now and then it was a Persian carpet. In the middle of each one was a framed picture of St. Pio, with a border of black cloth. Everyone was wearing their Sunday clothes. Flowers were thrown from many of the windows. At times they fell from a helicopter that followed the procession the whole way.

As they walked, the people in the procession prayed the Rosary and the Litany of Our Lady, over and over. Father Dasseville, who walked with them, wrote down what he heard and saw: “Amazingly enough, there was no hysteria. Only a few cries or outbursts from some women of San Giovanni Rotondo, who had known and loved Padre Pio for so many years, broke the silence of the procession. I saw men and women, priests and religious, unashamedly and in public, wipe away tears.”

After more than three hours the procession came back to the square in front of the church. The funeral Mass was said there, in the open air. The head of the Capuchin order and twenty-six other friars said that one Mass together.

Then St. Pio was buried in the crypt of the church of Our Lady of Grace. The church stands beside the friary where he had lived for fifty-two years.