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[Adventurer]

The body of the popular Italian saint, Padre Pio, has gone on display in a glass coffin in southern Italy.

Padre Pio was said to have had stigmata, or bleeding wounds of Jesus, on his hands and feet.

His body was exhumed in March on the 40th anniversary of his death. He was canonised by Pope John Paul II in 2002.

More than a million people are expected this year to see his body, which is said to be well-preserved. But there is reportedly no sign of the stigmata.

The head of the Vatican office dealing with sainthood, Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, led a special open-air Mass in San Giovanni Rotondo, in Puglia.

"This body is here, but Padre Pio is not only a corpse. Looking at his remains we remember all the good that he has done," the cardinal said.

The monks who exhumed his body in March said it was in "surprisingly good condition", despite no special measures having been taken to preserve it when he was buried in 1968.

"We could clearly make out the beard. The top part of the skull is partly skeletal but the chin is perfect and the rest of the body is well preserved. The knees, hands and nails all clearly visible," said Archbishop Domenico D'Ambrosio, who led the service to exhume the body.

PADREPIO

[Gamecock]

All religion is weird...but Catholicism has its own corner market on weirdness.

[Adventurer]

[stillnotking]