In Galatians 6:17, the apostle Paul says “I bear on my body the marks (Greek: “stigmata,” singular “stigma”) of Jesus.” These “marks” probably refer to scars, the results of the beatings and scourging Paul endured during his ministry (Acts 21:32; 2 Corinthians 11:23-25); he implies that his scars are symbolic of the scourging Jesus had received at the crucifixion. Thus, sharing similar wounds, or even a death by martyrdom for his sake, was seen as a sign of supreme devotion and holiness.
In medieval Catholicism, these stigmata or marks took on a more narrow meaning, referring specifically to the Five Holy Wounds that Jesus suffered on the cross from the nails in his hands and feet and the thrust of the lance into his side. For the earliest Christians, the wounds in the resurrected Jesus’ hands and side were signs of the authenticity of resurrection (John 20:24-29).
St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226), one of the greatest Christian mystics, was the first to claim to have received these Five Holy Wounds as stigmata on his own body. On Sept. 14, 1224, the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, St. Francis had a vision of Christ on the cross who “gave him the gift of the five wounds of Christ.” The most prominent of these were the two wounds in the palms of the hands, inflicted when Jesus was nailed to the cross.
Francis’ mystical union with Christ was thus physically manifest by the appearance of Christ’s wounds on his body. These wounds were a miraculous outward sign that Francis had become mystically one with Christ, sharing both Christ’s suffering and exaltation. It was thus a miraculous sign of Francis’ saintliness. The moment of Francis’ stigmatic vision became a widespread motif in Catholic art, most famously in Giotto’s painting “Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata” (c. 1300), now in the Louvre Museum in Paris. The symbol of the Franciscan monastic order, found on most of their monasteries and churches, is the crossed forearms of Jesus and Francis, each with the stigmata in their hands.
Since the time of Francis, other Catholic mystics have also claimed to have received the stigmata, including some women like St. Mariam Thresia Chiramel of India (1876-1926). The most famous modern stigmatic, however, is Padre Pio (1887-1968), who is sometimes called a modern St. Francis by his followers (see www.saintpiofoundation.org). Born to peasant farmers in the village of Pietrelcina in southern Italy, young Pio experienced numerous visions and ecstasies, entering monastic life at age 15 in 1903; he was ordained a priest in 1910. Throughout his life Padre Pio focused his ministry on assisting the poor, especially medical care.
Throughout his early life, Pio claimed to have mystically experienced the same suffering as Christ on the cross. In September 1918, he had a vision of Christ’s wounds, during which the marks of the crucifixion were “given” to Pio himself. Initially kept secret, news of Pio’s stigmata eventually became public. The Catholic Church sent medical examiners to study his claimed stigmata, with inconclusive results. Some doctors claimed the marks could not be explained, others that they were self-inflicted. Initially skeptical, many Catholic authorities denied the authenticity of Pio’s stigmata, but his fame as a holy man and healer spread nonetheless, creating widespread veneration among traditionalist Catholics in Italy, especially in the south.
Upon Pio’s death in 1968, he was probably the most famous holy man in Italy; 100,000 people attended his funeral. (One of the authors, while a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Italy in 1974, can attest to the widespread devotion to Padre Pio among the Italians at the time.) In 2002, Pio was canonized by Pope John Paul II (1978-2005), legitimizing the widespread veneration and miraculous claims of his hundreds of thousands of followers. While a young man, Karol Wojtyla, the future John Paul II, had visited Padre Pio in 1947. Rumors claimed that during that visit Padre Pio prophesied that Wojtyla would one day become pope.
Today the veneration of the stigmatic Padre Pio is widespread in Italy, where many churches will have a small chapel with a statue of Padre Pio. But his veneration is spreading. Throughout 2019, some of the relics of Padre Pio have been touring the United States (see www.saintpiofoundation.org/Event/ID/1556/Saint-Pio-Comes-to-America). Like St. Francis before him, St. Pio’s stigmata are seen by his many devotees as true signs of his holiness and mystical union with Christ.
Daniel Peterson founded the Middle Eastern Texts Initiative, chairs The Interpreter Foundation and blogs on Patheos. William Hamblin is the author of several books on premodern history. They speak only for themselves.