Various historical testimonies document that the beloved St. Pio of Pietrelcina (commonly known as Padre Pio), whose feast day is celebrated on Sept. 23, had the gift of xenoglossia — that is, he was capable of speaking and writing in languages that he did not actually know.
The website PadrePio.it references what was noted by the holy priest’s spiritual director, Father Agostino da San Marco in Lamis, who in 1912 noted that the saint of the stigmata “knows neither Greek nor French.”
However, in February 1912, after receiving letters in one of those languages, the priest asked Padre Pio: “Who taught you French?”, to which the saint responded: “To your question about French I respond with Jeremiah… nescio loqui” (“Alas, I don’t know how to speak”).
On Sept. 20 of that same year, Padre Pio told Father Agostino: “The celestial figures do not stop visiting and making me taste the emotion of the blessed. And if the mission of our guardian angel is great, mine is greater having to act as a teacher to explain other languages.”
In his book “Sayings and Anecdotes of Padre Pio,” Father Constantino Capobianco wrote that Angela Serritelli’s brother, who lived in the United States, took his daughter to San Giovanni Rotondo, where Padre Pio lived, to receive Communion from his hands.
The girl did not speak Italian and Padre Pio did not speak English, so he had a woman named Mary Pyle accompany her.
“Father, I have accompanied Angela’s [niece] to confess,” the woman said. “It’s okay,” Padre Pio said, to which the woman responded: “Father, I am here to help her because the girl does not understand Italian,” to which the saint replied: “Mary, you can go because these are things for her and I to see.”
After the confession, the girl explained that Padre Pio spoke to her in English and they were able to understand each other.
In his diary, Father Agostino remembers that on Jan. 21, 1945, he was told that “in 1940 or 1941 a Swiss priest came with Padre Pio who spoke in Italian with the Father.”
“Before leaving, the priest entrusted a sick woman to him and the Father responded in German [a language he did not know]: ‘ich werde sie an die gottliche Barmherzigkeit’ (‘I entrust her to divine mercy’). The priest was amazed at the fact and he told it to the person who was hosting him.”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, Catholic News Agency’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.