Relics of Padre Pio to visit Diocese of Owensboro, available for public veneration

November 20, 2021 | 12:07 am

Updated November 20, 2021 | 12:10 am

Graphic by Owensboro Times

Relics of Padre Pio will be available for veneration this weekend at St. Anthony Parish in Utica. The Diocese of Owensboro announced that the tour of the relics of Saint Pio of Pietrelcina was making a stop in the diocese, and that it’s an event that has been a couple years in the making.

The relics will be available for public veneration from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. A Mass in honor of Saint Pio, celebrated by Bishop William F. Medley, will take place at 9:30 a.m. Sunday.

The first and second-class relics of Saint Pio available for public veneration include:

  • The crusts of his wounds
  • Cotton gauze bearing his blood stains
  • A lock of his hair
  • His handkerchief soaked with his sweat only hours before he died
  • A piece of Padre Pio’s mantle


In the Catholic Church, relics are physical objects associated with a saint or candidate for sainthood – part of the person’s body or something with which he or she was in contact. Relics are not worshiped but treated with religious respect. Touching or praying in the presence of such an object helps a faithful individual focus on the saint’s life and virtues, so that through the saint’s prayer of intercession before God, the individual will be drawn closer to God.

Founded in 2014, the Saint Pio Foundation is a non-profit, charitable organization that promotes the legacy and teachings of Saint Pio of Pietrelcina, popularly known as Padre Pio. 

November 20, 2021 | 12:07 am

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