Padre Pio’s HospitalThe Home for the Relief of Suffering

Fr. Scott Haynes

In July 1916, Father Paolino of Casacalenda, superior of the Capuchin monastery of Our Lady of Grace in San Giovanni Rotondo, traveled to the Capuchin friary of St. Anne in Foggia to preach for the feast of St. Anne. Padre Pio was living at St. Anne’s at the time, and Father Paolino was startled by what he found.

The young friar was only twenty-nine, yet he looked spent. He was frail, unable to keep food down, and the fierce summer heat of Foggia seemed to press the life out of him. Father Paolino, moved by compassion and practical sense, urged him to come to San Giovanni Rotondo. The change of climate, he hoped, might strengthen him. Padre Pio accepted with quiet gratitude.

Our Lady of Grace was among the poorest and oldest Capuchin houses in the province, and one of the most isolated. The old monastery, whitewashed and weathered, sat in a hush that felt almost physical. A small church clung to it like a companion. Behind, on the slope of Mount Gargano, shepherds led their flocks; from far off came the faint clang of bells. Townspeople rarely climbed the long dirt path to attend Mass there. It was as though the place existed on the edge of the world.

Padre Pio loved it immediately. He relished its stillness, telling a confrere simply, “The silence here is beautiful.” The community enjoyed him as well, and Father Paolino wrote to Padre Agostino in Foggia that Padre Pio was content with the air, the quiet, and the solitude, and that the friars themselves were grateful to have him.

The mountain air did him real good. The higher altitude and cooler days brought relief, and within eight days his health improved noticeably. When he returned to Foggia, he asked permission to go back. In a letter to the Provincial, he explained that he needed to strengthen his body for further trials, and he begged the charity of time in San Giovanni Rotondo, where he believed he would recover.

Permission was granted. In September 1916, Padre Pio returned to Our Lady of Grace, and he would remain there for the next fifty-two years.

A town with no refuge for the sick

San Giovanni Rotondo was poor, largely made up of farmers and laborers who fought the soil for a living. Medical care was almost nonexistent. In emergencies, the only option was the small hospital in Foggia, about twenty-five miles away, a journey that could take twelve hours by horse and cart over rough dirt roads. Many died before they arrived.

Padre Pio heard story after story that should have been unthinkable in a civilized country. One man, badly injured in an accident, was taken to Foggia only to find no bed available. He lay on a cot in a hallway and waited more than a week before anyone treated his wounds. The case was not unusual. The suffering was routine. The neglect was normal. Padre Pio, who carried other people’s pain as though it were his own, could not let it be normal.

The need for a hospital became a fixed thought in him.

With the help of collaborators, he opened a small hospital in 1925, naming it St. Francis Hospital after his spiritual father, St. Francis of Assisi. It was modest: two wards, twenty beds. By modern standards it was inadequate, and in 1938 an earthquake damaged it so severely that it had to close permanently.

The problem only grew. As Padre Pio’s reputation spread, more pilgrims came to the monastery, many carrying serious illnesses. A town already unable to care for its own now had the sick arriving from elsewhere. Padre Pio understood that what was needed was not a bandage, but a true remedy: a large, fully equipped hospital with the best tools available, capable of handling any emergency, serving both locals and pilgrims.

People laughed at the idea. They called it absurd. His community had no money. The population was too small. Who would travel to a hospital in a remote place? The terrain was rocky, a “graveyard,” they said, unfit for foundations. Italy was in economic crisis. It was the wrong time, the wrong place, the wrong plan.

Padre Pio listened, and then wanted it even more.

If he waited for the “right moment,” it would never be built. The need was immediate. “We will do it with the help of God,” he repeated, and he meant it literally.

Once, when a sick man was brought to him, Padre Pio’s compassion overflowed. He blessed the man, promised prayers, and after the visitor left, a friar overheard him ask God to take the man’s sufferings and give them to him. Soon after, Padre Pio fell ill, and later the man recovered. Whether one sees in that story a miracle, a mystery, or a holy audacity, it reveals the same thing: Padre Pio did not merely pity suffering. He entered it.

He knew suffering from within: physical weakness, relentless interior trials, and the crushing hours of sadness he confessed to his spiritual director. That intimacy with the Cross gave him a tenderness toward the sick that could be almost unbearable to witness. He wept for them openly, especially for children.

The people chosen for a work too large

Padre Pio began, patiently and deliberately, to assemble those who would build the hospital with him. He chose administrators, doctors, engineers, accountants, and organizers, often with an uncanny certainty. To onlookers his decisions sometimes seemed impractical. Time proved otherwise.

One of his most significant choices was Dr. Guglielmo Sanguinetti. The doctor’s introduction to Padre Pio came through his wife, Emilia, who asked for an anniversary gift: a trip to San Giovanni Rotondo. Dr. Sanguinetti resisted strongly. He disliked religion, avoided churches, and distanced himself from priests. Yet he loved his wife enough to honor her request.

The visit overturned him. He attended Mass, and the next day he found himself wanting confession, the first in twenty-five years. On a later visit, Padre Pio told him about the hospital and urged him to move to San Giovanni Rotondo to help supervise the building project.

The doctor protested. He was not an architect or engineer. He had no money to retire from his practice. Padre Pio listened, asked for details, and brushed aside the objections with calm assurance. “Don’t worry. It will be taken care of,” he said, and added a strange promise: “You will soon be receiving a ticket.”

Dr. Sanguinetti dismissed the remark. Then, on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, his bank called: one of his government bonds had drawn a large prize in the state bond lottery. He remembered the “ticket.” He saw the hand of Providence. He closed his practice, moved with Emilia to San Giovanni Rotondo, and began the work in earnest. One by one, Padre Pio’s predictions about his role, his pace, even the practical details of his work, came true.

Another key figure was Dr. Carlo Kisvarday, a chemist from Zara in Yugoslavia. He first heard of Padre Pio almost by accident, during a trip connected to the famed mystic Therese Neumann of Konnersreuth. A stranger mentioned Padre Pio, and something in the doctor’s heart seized on the name. He changed course, traveled hundreds of miles to San Giovanni Rotondo, and when Padre Pio met him, he embraced him as though he had been expected. Soon Padre Pio urged him to settle nearby and help with the hospital. Dr. Kisvarday and his wife Mary did so, building a home close to the monastery. Over time, the doctor’s attachment to Padre Pio became so strong that he never wanted to leave his side.

Others joined: Dr. Mario Sanvico, an industrialist from Perugia, helped organize the early committee. On January 9, 1940, plans were formalized. Padre Pio was named founder. Sanvico became secretary. Sanguinetti served as Technical Medical Director and, in practice, as foreman, adviser, driver, and even editor for a publication connected to the work. Kisvarday became treasurer and accountant. Miss Ida Seitz oversaw internal affairs. Major decisions were to be brought to Padre Pio for approval.

That evening, after hearing the day’s report, Padre Pio said, “This evening my earthly work has begun. I bless you and all those who will contribute to this work.” Then he made the first offering: a coin from his pocket. A friend made the second. It was a small beginning, but it carried a certain fragrance: the humility of the Gospel, where a mustard seed is enough for God to begin.

When asked what the hospital would be called, Padre Pio waited. Three days later he gave the name: the Home for the Relief of Suffering. Not an institution. Not a clinic. A home.

War, dust, and a road carved into rock

World War II forced delays, but it did not extinguish Padre Pio’s resolve. When the war ended, he pressed for immediate action. He enlisted Father Giuseppe “Peppino” Orlando, an old friend from Pietrelcina. Father Peppino worried aloud: they had no blueprint, no final design, not enough money. People would laugh.

Padre Pio was persistent, almost playful in his insistence. He would nudge him and repeat, “Peppino, when are we going to start? We must get started!”

At last Father Peppino yielded. He bought two skeins of string, gathered laborers, and began preparing a road to the site. Each day Padre Pio watched from his monastery window, thrilled by every sign of progress. In the evenings, when Father Peppino returned dusty from the work, Padre Pio would brush the dust from his cassock with visible satisfaction, as though it were a sacramental: the dust of charity.

The chief designer and builder was Angelo Lupi of Pescara, selected over many candidates. He was widely regarded as brilliant, yet he lacked a formal architecture degree. It made him an easy target for criticism and complaints to authorities. He improvised with what he had, using a kitchen table as a drawing board, building plans in a place where resources were scarce and equipment limited.

When he confessed his anxieties, Padre Pio listened and smiled. The critics had degrees from men, Padre Pio told him, but Lupi had received his “degree from God.” In time, Lupi would receive an honorary degree, but more importantly, he would give visible form to a vision that seemed impossible.

The land itself came as a gift. Maria Basilio, one of Padre Pio’s spiritual daughters, donated the property adjacent to the monastery where the hospital would rise. Another spiritual daughter, Cleonice Morcaldi, once saw Padre Pio standing before the desolate slope, gazing in silence, then pressing his fingers to his lips and blowing a kiss toward the future building site, as if blessing the emptiness with hope.

The practical challenges were severe. The Mount Gargano region lacked resources. Water had to be brought by tapping the Apulian aqueduct, and additional supplies were secured by cisterns collecting rain. A homemade power plant produced electricity. A lime kiln was built to extract lime for plaster, and Padre Pio came down to bless it. Later a stone-crushing machine arrived.

Then came the blasting. Tons of mountainside were broken with dynamite, explosions set off twice a day for months. Hundreds of men labored with picks and sledgehammers: farmers, shepherds, former servicemen, even ex-convicts. Workshops sprang up. Untrained laborers became bricklayers, painters, blacksmiths, carpenters. In an Italy plagued by unemployment, San Giovanni Rotondo found steady work, and families found bread.

Even the workers’ spiritual lives were cared for. A special Mass was offered on the first Friday of each month. At day’s end, a bell summoned everyone involved to the church.

“This is God’s work”: the money problem and Providence

The greatest obstacle was money. Dr. Kisvarday recorded donations in a simple school notebook, and most gifts were small. The town had little extra. Committees organized lotteries and raffles; plays with spiritual themes raised funds; donation boxes appeared in shops throughout the town.

Padre Pio refused to finance the project through loans. The work would proceed gradually, as money came in. When donations slowed, work slowed. He was unwavering: “This is God’s work. It is not mine. God will see to the money.”

Yet the numbers looked grim. The leaders feared the project might collapse under its own costs. Then, in 1948, help arrived from an unexpected quarter.

Barbara Ward, a British journalist and economist, visited San Giovanni Rotondo after hearing about Padre Pio from friends in Rome. She toured the site and spoke with Padre Pio briefly, asking prayers for her fiancé, Commander Robert Jackson, a Protestant whom she hoped would become Catholic. Soon after her visit, Robert entered the Catholic Church under circumstances that struck them both as providential.

Barbara told Robert about the hospital project. He was deputy director of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), which assisted countries devastated by the war. He pushed the case for aid. The result was a major grant: 400 million lire designated for the Home, though the Italian government took 150 million, leaving 250 million lire for the project, still a tremendous sum.

UNRRA requested the hospital be named for Fiorello Henry La Guardia, UNRRA’s recently deceased Director General. Padre Pio refused to change the name he had chosen, though he did permit a large plaque honoring La Guardia to be placed in the hospital.

When Barbara returned in 1950, she was astonished by the progress. In the hospital chapel, she discovered that an artist had used her face as the model for the Virgin Mary in a stained glass window, a gesture of gratitude that led many to call her the hospital’s “godmother.”

Not every fundraiser was noble. One local family collected donations and used them to build a home for themselves instead of turning the money over to the project. Soon after the deception came to light, their new house collapsed on its foundations. And when a wealthy man attempted to bargain with God, offering money only if his terminally ill wife were healed, Padre Pio refused the premise. “One does not bargain with the Lord,” he said.

A hospital, yes, but more: a “Home”

Padre Pio insisted the place be welcoming. It was never to feel clinical or cold. Flowers freshened rooms. Harsh odors were minimized. There were to be no grim wards, but bright rooms with generous windows. The interior used soft colors, the floors featured attractive mosaics laid by local girls, and the exterior was faced with pale rose Trani stone. Green marble lined stairways, red Carso marble marked foyers. There was a library, an auditorium for films, terraces, gardens.

Dr. Sanguinetti also secured land for a farm to supply patients with fresh produce, milk, cheese, eggs, and meat. Hundreds of tons of rich soil were hauled up the slopes on mules. Thousands of trees, mostly pine and cypress, were planted. In a place once called barren, a kind of garden began to appear.

When criticized for spending money on beauty, Padre Pio replied that nothing was too good for the sick because the sick person is Jesus. He went further: a hospital, he said, is like a tabernacle, because Christ is present in those who suffer. That conviction shaped everything, from architecture to etiquette, from finances to spiritual care.

He made it clear that no one in need was to be turned away because of poverty. He also expressed a desire for a cancer research center, knowing how many pilgrims came burdened with that diagnosis.

The opening: May 1956

The Home for the Relief of Suffering was inaugurated on May 5, 1956, sixteen years after the first committee meeting. Padre Pio offered Mass at an altar set between the pillars of the hospital entrance. An immense crowd gathered. Bishops, priests, officials, and representatives from Padre Pio prayer groups across the world were present, as well as noted physicians from many countries. Flags of nations were displayed across the front of the building, a striking sign that the suffering of a poor mountain town had become a concern of the wider world.

Padre Pio spoke publicly only rarely, but he did so that day, visibly moved. He thanked benefactors everywhere and urged continued collaboration, praying that the Home would be a center of prayer and science, a living Franciscan spirit in action, where charity and competence would meet at the bedside.

The next day, May 6, he addressed assembled doctors and reminded them that medicine without love grows thin. Skills matter, he implied, but the heart must be present too. A patient needs healing, yes, but also consolation, courage, and the sense that he is not abandoned.

The first patient was admitted on May 10, 1956. Early numbers were lower than expected, and administrators worried. On the feast of Corpus Christi that year, Padre Pio carried the Blessed Sacrament in procession through the wards. Soon after, the hospital began to fill. Within three years, it needed expansion and a new wing.

The people who carried the weight

Dr. Kisvarday gave more than twenty years to the Home, working from dawn until nearly midnight. Padre Pio once told him he was praying that God would grant him one added year of life. Not long after, the doctor suffered a grave crisis and lay unconscious in the Home for three days. He recovered, returned to health, and almost a year later died, as though that “added year” had been granted exactly as Padre Pio said.

Padre Pio also secured a full-time chaplain: Father Innocenzo of Campobasso. For decades he celebrated Mass in the chapel, heard confessions, visited the sick, guided the nursing sisters, and made a daily holy hour for the patients. He witnessed again and again how confession and the sacraments restored not only peace, but something like life itself to the dying and the afraid.

At Padre Pio’s request, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a nursing congregation, came to serve in the Home. Years earlier, when the sisters had been called away from San Giovanni Rotondo, Padre Pio had told them they would return to work in a “big hospital” that would rise where a mountain stood. Thirty-five years later, they returned, and the prophecy was fulfilled.

Sister Miriam Brusa, one of the sisters, used to say the Home was built on Padre Pio’s tears. Those closest to him recognized how much hidden suffering he endured for the work. And stories of Providence continued: once, Sister Miriam noticed a shortage of five million lire needed for monthly expenses. She chose not to burden Padre Pio with the news. Within days, the exact amount arrived through a donor who, without knowing the figure, felt compelled to write a check for precisely what was needed.

Padre Pio’s presence at the Home continued through the years. He visited the seriously ill, prayed at bedsides, and on special occasions celebrated Mass in the chapel. He took joy in seeing the Home alive, not merely as a building, but as a living work of mercy.

After Padre Pio: a work entrusted to the Church

In his final arrangements, Padre Pio donated the Home for the Relief of Suffering to the Holy See, wanting the work secured and protected for future generations. Some predicted that after his death, the hospital would decline and close. Instead, it continued to grow and develop, a lasting testimony that the vision was larger than one man’s lifetime.

In later years, Pope John Paul II visited the Home (May 23, 1987), greeted medical staff, toured departments, and met patients, highlighting the union of advanced medicine with faith and prayer in service to the suffering.

Padre Pio had placed the Home under the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary from the beginning, confident that she would remain present in what he called his “hospital city.” And even now, those who walk its corridors, pass through its gardens, or stop in its chapels often sense that the spirit of its founder is still near: a quiet insistence that love must be practical, that beauty is not wasted on the suffering, and that Christ is found, unmistakably, in the sick.