Groups come from around the world to pay homage to Pio whom the Pope made a saint on June 16
By 9 a.m., the sounds of booming business have spread across this southern hillside town. (Grazie, Padre Pio!) Jackhammers pound at pavement for a new sewer line extension, a yellow crane creaks above a massive church-in-progress, jam-packed tour buses huff up San Giovanni Rotondo's final slopes. But the real source of this runaway growth produces much softer sounds. Listen inside the shadows of the town's main sanctuary: a deep sigh from a bespectacled middle-aged man, muttered prayers from a pre-teen girl in a multicolored windbreaker, people choking back tears, others openly sobbing. It is this quiet rumbling of faith that has...
