Padre Pio, who died in 1968 at age 81, was a mystic monk who
many Catholic faithful believe bore “stigmata,” or wounds like
those Jesus suffered at his crucifixion, on his hands and feet. He
was made a saint in 2002.

Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, head of the Vatican’s sainthood
office, lead an open-air Mass for thousands of faithful before the
unveiling of the saint’s body in a church in San Giovanni Rotondo,
where the saint had lived.

“Today, we venerate his body, opening a particularly intense
period of pilgrimage,” Saraiva Martins said. “This body is here,
but Padre Pio is not only a corpse. Looking at his remains we
remember all the good that he has made.”

Saraiva Martins and other church officials later descended into
the church’s crypt for a private viewing of the body. State-run
broadcaster RAI showed the body in a casket enclosed in crystal,
wearing a monk’s hooded dark robe.

The officials gathered solemnly around the crypt, and prayed.
The faithful, who will be able to file past the body later
Thursday, followed the ceremony through maxi TV screens outside.

The Capuchin monk, whose original name was Francesco Forgione,
had an enormous following in Italy and abroad. He lived for decades
with inexplicable bleeding wounds on his hands and feet.

Church officials exhumed the body so the faithful could pray
before it, since this year marks the 40th anniversary of his death.
They also wanted to take measures to ensure it was being well
preserved.

Since the unearthing in March, the body has been prepared for
public viewing in the crypt of the Santa Maria delle Grazie church
in San Giovanni Rotondo, a town near the Adriatic in southern
Puglia.

Church officials have said there was no sign of the so-called
stigmata on his limbs after an initial examination, and that the
body was in good condition.

Organizers say they expect 15,000 people to pay their respects
to Padre Pio on the first day of the viewing. It is not yet known
when the body will be reburied.

Padre Pio had a huge public following in life, as in death, and
his beatification and canonization ceremonies drew hundreds of
thousands of people to the Vatican.

For decades, though, many in the Vatican were uneasy about his
popularity and scorned him, doubting that his wounds were real and
that mystical virtues attributed to him were authentic. He was
barred for years from saying Mass in public, even as his following
grew immensely.