This colorful memoir offers a rare, up-close glimpse of the life and personality of St. Pio of Pietrelcina, the beloved Italian monk who was blessed with extraordinary gifts.

The late Fr. Amorth--well-known as an exorcist --enjoyed over two decades of a close friendship with the holy, quirky Padre Pio, whom he considered his spiritual father. Adding his own personal experience to a foundation of biographical research, Amorth gives an entertaining and illuminating account of perhaps one of the best-known saints of the twentieth century.

In this book, we span from Padre Pio''s childhood--where he cured himself of a disease by wolfing down all his mother''s fried bell peppers--to his miracle-filled priesthood, to his Italian gift for mimicry, humor, and storytelling.

Rather than a plaster image of a saint, this book is a portrait of a fully human kind of holiness, proof that even the most astonishing graces can be lived out with simplicity and joy.