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Friday, September 6, 2013

St Pio and the Queen

Throughout most of her life, Queen Marie Jose of Italy could probably best be described as a dutiful Catholic rather than a devout one. She was sincere, she was faithful and she was raised with a great respect for the Catholic Church. It certainly helped shape her morality and her sense of compassion for the less fortunate. However, by her own admission, she was never zealous about her Christianity, not of a disposition to believe mystical or miraculous  things. She was the very open, tolerant, non-judgmental type of person and not the kind who dwelled excessively on sin, dogmas, angels or demons. Queen Marie Jose tended to view religion in an earth-bound way; be good and do good and you should be okay. Yet, she had a very significant spiritual encounter with a saint, famous in his own time, who embodied almost everything about Catholicism that the Queen did not. That man was Padre Pio, known today as St Pio of Pietrelcina. This was a man who was famously short-tempered, not one to suffer fools gladly, a man who could see into the souls of others, who bore the stigmata, the very wounds of Christ, and who had many miracles attributed to him even in his own lifetime. It was also not unknown for him to make the occasional prophecy.

Many, many people all over the world are familiar with St Pio of Pietrelcina. Even a great many who are not Catholics have at least heard of the man named Padre Pio. In all the discussions of his saintliness, however, his words of wisdom, his patience and obedience, even when treated harshly by disbelieving superiors in the Church, what is seldom mentioned is the fact that St Pio was a staunch Italian royalist and that he made some predictions concerning the Italian monarchy and the House of Savoy, each to Queen Marie Jose. The first occasion came when Princess Marie Jose of Piedmont visited Padre Pio in 1938, just out of curiosity. She had most likely heard of the future saint through her mother-in-law Queen Elena (a devoutly Catholic lady whose cause for canonization is also being considered). When Princess Marie Jose arrived, she was struck by the aroma of violets in the air even though there were no flowers around. In typical fashion, when Padre Pio was told that the Princess of Piedmont had arrived, he said he would see her but only after he finished hearing those who had come to confession. With Padre Pio, the Lord’s work came first and other visitors, princess or no princess, would have to wait.

When they two finally met, the future saint and the future Queen of Italy had a very long talk. Among other things, Padre Pio reassured the princess about her father, King Albert I of the Belgians, who had died not long before. The Princess confessed the fears she had about Mussolini and his Fascist government but what was most significant was what Padre Pio told her about what was to come. He predicted that there would soon be a terrible war (and as we know, World War II broke out in Europe only a short time later) and that “everything will end soon”. Later, Queen Marie Jose realized that what St Pio had been referring to was the end of the Italian monarchy and the end of the reign of the House of Savoy after a thousand years in power. Looking back, it seemed an obvious reference and yet, in 1938, it was quite a prediction to make. The Italian monarchy was one of a relative few to have survived the First World War and, indeed, after that conflict, on paper at least, the King of Italy was arguably the most powerful monarch in Europe. By 1938 the Kingdom of Italy had pacified rebels in Libya, conquered an old enemy in Ethiopia and helped the nationalists win the Spanish Civil War. Everything seemed to be going great and no one, at that time, would have predicted such a gloomy future.

That story and that famous meeting has aroused relatively little controversy. Another, however, involving the last Queen of Italy and a prophecy of St Pio is a little bit more divisive. I must stress that some people will undoubtedly dispute this, but here is the story: Queen Marie Jose began a correspondence with St Pio during her time in exile in Switzerland. In their exchange of letters, St Pio wrote that “the monarchy will return to Italy” and that one of her relatives would be King. Nothing controversial there, though certainly hopeful and encouraging. The controversy came next, with St Pio saying that the next King would not be of the senior Savoy-Carignano line that the Queen’s own son was from but that this line of the Royal Family would be “dried up like dry leaves on a tree”. Rather, he predicted, it would be a different branch of the House of Savoy that would see the Italian monarchy restored. This story, immediately upon being made known, was taken to mean that the Savoy family line of the Duke of Aosta would be the one to preside over the restoration of the Kingdom of Italy. And there was just one more, perhaps miraculous, event that Savoy-Aosta royalists could point to.

During the celebrations for the canonization of St Pio, the friars of his monastery invited Prince Aimone of Savoy-Aosta, rather than any officials of the Italian republican government, to attend. Down in the crypt they reveal for all to see a bas-relief showing St Pio preaching with a crowd of people facing him. More than a few people noticed immediately that one of the figures looked exactly like Prince Aimone at the age of about fifteen, wearing the Collar of the Annunciation and carrying the cross symbol of the House of Savoy. What is seemingly miraculous about this is that, at the time the bas-relief was made, when St Pio died, Prince Aimone was barely a year old. Yet, the resemblance of the image to the Prince that stood there was uncanny. Observers could only speculate that St Pio had influenced the artists at their work. Was this perhaps a sign from the saint, pointing out the man who would restore the Italian kingdom? We can only hope, and work and pray. Perhaps a pray for the intercession of St Pio of Pietrelcina would not go amiss?

See also The Perfume of Violets at The Cross of Laeken

10 comments:

  1. Can you please write more about Portugal.

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    1. I will at some point but Portugal is a little more difficult for me to cover than some other countries because I do not have much material on hand about it and so my knowledge of Portugal is not quite where I would like it to be.

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  2. This is very strange, indeed. I had never heard mention of this prophecy. I had heard conflicting information about Padre Pio supposedly being glad that the Savoys fell because of their past treatment of the Church. I thought this sounded unfair, since all that was hardly the fault of Umberto and Marie-José. If anything, I wonder if the anti-Catholic forces involved in bringing the Savoys to the throne in the first place, turned against them at this point in part because the family was now becoming pious again.

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    1. It also seems odd given how complimentary Pius IX was toward Victor Emmanuel II and the queens were always very devout. However, the Church had put itself in an awkward position. For years they had the luxury of being critical when the monarchy was secure but when a republic became a real possibility the Church swung around and started trying to persuade people to support the monarchy. As always though, not everyone was willing to put the past behind them. They should have, if Pius XII, who came from the blackest of black nobility families, was able to support the monarchy, anyone should have been able to.

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  3. Great article as usual MadMonarchist. Informative and educational. I wanted to ask you what your favorite period in history is? The reason I'm asking is, perhaps you could incorporate historic periods in your writing. Like for example dedicate an article to say.... The Belle Époque(1871-1814). Now I'll admit I'm being biased, I only mentioned the Belle Époque, because it is my personal favorite time in history. Perhaps you could write a piece on some good old times of Monarchist prosperity and that way it would focus more broadly on the benefits of Minarchism. What you're doing is great, your individual writings on Minarchist figures are stellar. But I believe if there is an expanded scope on past Monarchist glory epochs particularly my favorite The Belle Époque, I think we can significantly increase the education of the unfortunately ignorant masses on the subject of the benefits of Monarchism vs the ills of Republicanism.

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    1. I'm too erratic to have a favorite. I am famous among those around me for jumping from one thing to the next, each time insisting that THIS is the most important period in history of all. However, I have consistently maintained that one could study ancient Rome and never have to study anything else. They did it all, tried it all and even today there is hardly anything that could not be related back to the Roman Republic or the Roman Empire.

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  4. Well, we can certainly pray. If there is anything good and decent in the world, the unholy injustice of 1946 will be reversed in time. Given the realities of the modern world essentially mandating that the candidate for the throne be "popular" in order to effect a restoration, Prince Aimone would probably be the most "acceptable" too.

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    1. Actually, Prince Emanuele Filiberto is probably the more popular candidate in that most Italians at least know who he is (mostly because of his reality TV appearances and the antics of his father) whereas the Aosta branch rarely attract tabloid or news attention.

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  5. As a Secular Franciscan, I gleaned much information from your article. It is sometimes true that the paths of kings and saints often cross, usually to the betterment of the royal (I am aware of some exceptions). I humbly request more articles on current African royalty, since as a African American, I am interested in them. Thank you for all of your diligent hard work.

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    1. I've done about 30 posts on Africa-related royalty (not counting a few on Haiti) and will do more. However, I probably will not do as many as I would like as I just do not know as much about the monarchies of Africa and good information on them is rather hard to find. What is available is also sometimes controversial based on the point of view of the one writing it. Much of African history was never written down and the earliest accounts tend to come from outsiders and what they have to say is not always reliable. Last year I did a Black History Month special with one post a week all month about an African royal or royal-related key event. I try to have something for every part of the world but, I'm sure you understand, one tends to drift toward familiar waters which in my case is East Asia or Europe. Peruse what is here (check the articles page at the top for a list of countries) and hopefully more will be coming.

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