VATICAN CITY, June 16 -- One of the largest crowds to ever gather here greeted the making of an Italian saint today, a monk said to have cured diseases, predicted the future and wrestled with the Devil.
The canonization of Padre Pio, who died in 1968, was a medieval rite studded with 21st-century details. Large television screens dotted nearby plazas and the broad boulevard that leads from Rome to St. Peter's Square so that the multitude, estimated at 300,000, could view and hear Pope John Paul II preside over the ceremony. The pontiff ordered, in Latin, that Padre Pio "be devotedly honored among the saints" throughout the Roman Catholic world. Vendors hawked Padre Pio fans, lighters, T-shirts, coffee cups, refrigerator magnets, hats and enough figurines, it seemed, to fill the Colosseum. Snipers manned rooftops and a helicopter flew over the Vatican on guard against terrorist attack.
Celebrities and politicians flocked to St. Peter's and offered testimonies to Padre Pio's saintliness. Rafaela Carra, a singer and dancer, announced she would dedicate a television show to testimonies about Padre Pio's good works. The other day, a government minister attributed the passage of Italy's World Cup soccer team into the next round of the tournament to Padre Pio's help. (The coach also sprinkled holy water on his bench during the last match, against Mexico. Italy tied the score in the last few minutes.)
The popular outpouring contrasted with gloomy assessments of the state of Christianity in this overwhelmingly Catholic country. Church pews in Italy are generally vacant on Sundays, and the Jesuit magazine Civilta Cattolica is set to lament in its next edition that the "new Italian man is not Christian" and has an "aversion" to the church.
Yet the adoration of Padre Pio highlighted another side of Italian worship, one that is widespread, deeply mystical and characteristically Mediterranean. From ancient times, communities in this region have venerated local miracle workers and holy men. The tradition lives not only in the shrines holding saintly relics across southern Europe, but also in tombs of Jewish and Muslim religious figures that are pilgrimage sites in Middle Eastern towns and villages.
Padre Pio's burial place in the southern town of San Giovanni Rotondo is a major pilgrim destination, attracting 800,000 visitors a year. A huge, modernistic church is being built to house his sarcophagus. About 30,000 people filled the town today to celebrate Padre Pio's canonization.
Padre Pio was born in Pietrelcina, a hamlet also in southern Italy. The sick flocked to his Franciscan Capuchin monastery for miracle cures. The Vatican officially affirmed the success of two miracles, the number needed for canonization: one of a woman afflicted with a lung disease, another of a boy with meningitis. In 1947, John Paul II, then a young priest, wrote Padre Pio to intercede on behalf of a Polish friend suffering with cancer. The woman was among today's spectators.
The crowd today withstood temperatures of nearly 100 degrees. About 500 people were treated for heat exhaustion.
The pope looked frail as he sat for 2 1/2 hours under a canopy in front of St. Peter's Basilica. His head drooped and his voice quavered. The progressive toll taken by symptoms of Parkinson's disease, arthritis and age have led to intense speculation that, at 82, he might soon resign.
During his 23-year reign, the pope has made saints of more than 400 men and women from all continents, as examples of holiness for the contemporary era. Today, he called Padre Pio a "model for our times."