Religion

By EMILY MITCHELL

On the road to sainthood, it pays to have connections. A mystic with blood on his hands was scheduled to move a step closer to becoming a saint this week with Pope John Paul II's beatification of the Capuchin friar known as PADRE PIO. The cleric, who died in 1968, is a favorite of the Pontiff's and a cultlike figure to many other Catholics. Last year 7 million pilgrims--more than went to Lourdes--trekked to the remote hillside village of Italy's San Giovanni Rotondo, where he's buried; the village bustles with the construction of hotels and a church that will seat 7,500.

Padre Pio bled for 50 of his 81 years from mysterious, Christlike wounds on his hands, feet and side. Suspicious about the stigmata as well as his reputation for seeing visions and being in two places at once, the Vatican investigated the friar and curtailed his activities. But he was sought out by believers, including, in 1947, a Polish priest named Karol Wojtyla, who reportedly was told he'd someday be Pope. As Cracow's auxiliary bishop, Wojtyla asked Padre Pio to pray for a friend with cancer; she recovered, and is still alive. In 1983 the Pontiff put him on the path to sainthood, and the final step of canonization could come within the next decade.

--By Emily Mitchell