User Reviews

Where to begin? This movie is terrible. It contains slanderous scenes, and other scenes which made me want to be sick or weep. I did watch the entire movie to try to be fair. I kept thinking, "Maybe soon will be a scene that explains all of the other strange or untrue or questionable scenes, and implications, and I will feel better". That moment never arrived; I felt worse as the movie went on.

The movie pastes a thin veneer of politeness over the surface, but wastes no opportunity to hurl venom at the Roman Catholic Church, at the priesthood and even at St Pio and his family. In one scene for instance, the holy seal of confession is broken - and in the most horrible way. St Pio's father is portrayed as being an adulterer, something that is fabricated out of whole (if rancid) cloth, as no one would have been present at a confession other than the person and their priest. So on what do they base this slander? St Pio's parents were a model of chastity and holiness, as their letters ascribe. This sick-making slander not only has an innocent man accused of sin but it portrays the saint as saying it FOR him. As evil often does, it puts one percent reality in to confuse and muddle the viewer - St Pio did SOMETIMES gently say things to people; he could read souls. BUT to imply he did this during his father's dying hours, and not only that but to repeat WHAT was said, and something which is a lie - why would a movie supporting the holiness of a saint do this!? It is quite simply, A LIE.

Other implications are made in the film, such as that St Pio supposedly had an improper relationship with a young woman, (he did not gaze longingly at a spiritual child or take long walks alone with her at sunset!), he injured himself to make his stigmata, (as presented in the film, it could be either supernatural or NOT and they spend much more time against it) they even have him ripping apart souvenir stands outside the friary. I'd like to know how he managed that, with stigmatised hands and feet! It NEVER HAPPENED.

Theologically this film is also a mess. It implies the bishop is the devil, and then has St Pio begging him to stay and hear his confession. It shows St Pio pulling off his gloves during mass to show off his healed hands, and criticising a fellow priest (which he NEVER DID) during mass. St Pio's mass was not about him, it was a miraculous event some called the Living Calvary - St Pio's spiritual gifts were many. This film is mainly interested in his social works such as the hospital he shepherded. The pamphlet with it even says "that is his true miracle". It seems they pasted in some minor events to pacify people but without having read every book about him, most won't know the major ones are twisted and fabricated. If you consider yourself supportive of St Pio please spare yourself this awful mess of a movie. Come to the sanpadrepio prayer group on Yahoo and you can hear more. There is too much to write here.