In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In Padre Pio's life there were many, many conversions.
Some were converted only by watching him celebrate mass.
Others through confession or personal conversations.
But they all remained forever as his spiritual children,
for whom Padre Pio prayed and he commended them daily to God.
Emanuele Brunatto was one of the great converts of Padre Pio.
He had been a diver in America,
a ladies' tailor in Milan,
a jockey in Bologna,
a merchant in Palermo,
and the businessman of a famous cabaret singer in Naples.
He recounts his conversion like this:
The friar, referring to Padre Pio,
looked at me with disdain as if he saw the devil coming.
I thought: is this the saint?
Why does he look at me with such hatred? He was furious.
Padre Pio seemed not to take care of me.
I fled like a madman from the sacristy and began to sob like a wounded child,
constantly repeating: My God, my Lord.
When I returned to the sacristy,
Padre Pio was waiting for me alone.
His beautiful face radiated an indescribable joy.
Wordlessly, Padre Pio motioned for me to kneel down.
Memories of the past came to me like waters of a flooding torrent.
How many mistakes made since my adolescence! I told him:
I will never finish confessing so many sins.
Then Padre Pio told me:
You have confessed during the war and our Lord Jesus Christ has forgiven you.
When the moment of absolution came,
Padre Pio started several times,
as if he were fighting with an invisible adversary,
referring to Satan.
The sacramental words collided like arrows shot over my head,
while from Padre Pio's mouth came a perfume of roses and violets
that flooded my face.
As I left the convent, I asked Padre Pio
to bless the only decent object that I found in my pockets,
a pair of white gloves,
the last residue of my theatrical performances.
He was a little surprised,
but he smiled at me and blessed the white gloves.
From that day until I lost them,
those gloves occasionally gave off the perfume of roses
that I had smelled during confession.
Emanuele Brunatto once converted,
he wanted to stay definitively to live with Padre Pio.
For a time they allowed him to live inside the convent,
helping Padre Pio at mass.
When Padre Pio was segregated in 1931, Emanuele Brunatto was his staunch defender.
He threatened to publish a book
that he had written, entitled
Gli anticristi nella Chiesa di Cristo (The antichrists in the Church of Christ),
where he spoke of the involvement of some high ecclesiastics.
The Holy See was concerned and tried to prevent its publication.
Padre Pio wrote to Emanuele Brunatto two letters,
full of paternal love, so that he would not publish the book
in which some members of the Church would look bad.
Likewise, Padre Pio had to fight hard so another of his converts,
the mayor of San Giovanni Rotondo, Francesco Morcaldi,
would not publish another book written by him: Lettera alla Chiesa.
Later, in 1960, Padre Pio received some restrictions,
and Brunatto organized an International Association for the Defense of Padre Pio's Person.
He had a White Book ready to be delivered to the UN
and to world public opinion
on the attacks on human rights in the person of Padre Pio.
All this made our saint suffer a lot,
Padre Pio wanted no one to defend him,
because he wanted to be a son of the Catholic Church until the last consequences.
Therefore, Padre Pio told them:
"Do not throw garbage against your own Mother, the Catholic Church."
The convert was Ferruccio Caponetti, a Freemason,
who recounted his conversion in a letter written in Bologna on November 18th, 1931.
It goes like this:
I went up the rough path of Gárgano
and met the teacher, referring to Padre Pio, who welcomed me with joy,
because he saw a blind man in me.
He heard with happiness the doubts in my thoughts.
With simple words,
but with an immense depth of thought,
he demolished one by one all the theories that my spirit was full of
until I did not have anything else to oppose him.
He laid bare my soul again and, showing me the sublime teachings of the Lord,
opened the eyes of the spirit again and I knew the true faith.
Now I feel within me the true peace of spirit.
Now I know the true God and I owe that to Padre Pio.
Professor Felix Checcacci of Genoa, author of novels,
performances and music, had lived in the middle east
for about 40 years
and considered Christianity to be a derivation of Brahmanism and Buddhism.
He says:
"I wrote to Padre Pio asking him for peace of mind."
Two days later, at sunset,
I suddenly noticed a whisper and an inner voice that told me:
"Go to the church and pray."
I confess that it was more than 30 years
that I didn't go to church with devotion.
I obeyed and, during the prayer, this inner voice whispered to me:
“Faith is not discussed. Either you accept it with your eyes closed,
admitting the insignificance of man to understand the mysteries, or you reject it.
There is no middle ground. You choose”.
From that day on, I chose my path and I owe to Padre Pio
my return to the religion of my parents, that's the catholic church.
On July 3rd, 1934, the lawyer Michele Tortora
a Freemason, of the 32nd degree, came to visit Padre Pio.
And after some conversations he retracted his past and converted,
being from that date a faithful son of Padre Pio, whom he visited frequently.
Another convert was Giovanni Confetto.
His conversion was told by Father Pierino Galeone:
One day Giovanni Confetto approached me and he told me that his wife had a malignant tumor
and the doctors said that she would not survive.
She had insisted that he take her to San Giovanni Rotondo to Padre Pio,
who was said to have performed miracles.
He asked me to speak to Padre Pio and to tell Padre Pio for honesty
that Giovanni Confetto did not believe,
he was a Freemason of the 33rd degree, the highest in Freemasonry.
He lived in Rome and was a senior official in the Italian Ministry of Economy.
We both went and spoke alone to Padre Pio,
who told Giovanni Confetto:
“How can I speak to Jesus, if you don't believe that He exists?
You must first believe in Jesus and then I will ask Jesus about your wife."
Giovanni Confetto understood.
After three months I saw Giovanni Confetto again in the convent square
and asked him about his wife. He responded to me:
She's cured.
So you have confessed?
Yes, I came to confession
and, when I returned home,
my wife was cured.
Doctors couldn't understand it.
So I have come back to thank you for it.
And his wife approached us and was smiling.
Another similar case.
The lawyer Alberto Del Fante also a Freemason of the 33rd degree,
the highest in Freemasonry, converted by Padre Pio
and who has written several books about him.
He also had a wife who was very seriously ill with no hope of healing.
He says: My wife asked me to go to San Giovanni Rotondo
to see Padre Pio
to ask him to heal my wife.
She knew very well that I was a Freemason and a furious anticlerical.
I used to say:
"If science can't do anything, much less a poor friar."
But, seeing her cry,
and to do what she asked,
I agreed to go, telling her "that it was like playing the lottery"
I put myself in the confession line and, when my turn came,
Padre Pio told me:
“Young man, don't waste my time. Have you come to play the lottery?
If you want to go to confession, kneel down or let me hear the confessions of these people who are waiting”.
I knelt without much conviction and Padre Pio changed his voice
and gently revealed all my sins, which were many.
I listened with my head bowed and only answered yes.
In the end, Padre Pio asked me,
"Do you have any other sin?"
I told him no.
He added:
"Aren't you ashamed?
And that young woman who recently went to America and had a child of yours?
It is your blood and you have abandoned the mother and the child”.
It was true.
I started to cry regretfully.
Padre Pio put his hand behind my back and said:
"My son, you have cost me the best of my blood."
And Padre Pio cried with me.
An immense peace invaded me.
He asked me: "My son, help me to help others and greet your wife from me"
Upon returning home, my wife was cured.
Father Rafael
recounted the conversion of the lawyer Ricciardi:
it was December 4th, 1928
and the relatives of Francesco Antonio Ricciardi arrived at the convent,
asking that Padre Pio be allowed to go to the city to hear his confession
because he was an atheist, he was dying and did not want to confess to anyone else.
The sick man had never been to church and he considered himself an unbeliever.
I accompanied Padre Pio in the car.
It was late and the weather was very cold and it was snowing.
We arrived at the house and only Padre Pio was left with the sick man,
who confessed and received communion from Padre Pio.
Upon returning, the news had already spread and people were coming out of their houses to applaud Padre Pio.
The sick man did not die, but he recovered and lived a few more years. I gave him the last sacraments.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.