In 1931 the Holy See stripped Padre Pio of everything but a private Mass. No confessions, no public Mass, no letters. The man who fought hardest to get him back was a con man from Turin who walked into the friar's confessional wearing white gloves and walked out a different man. On the feast of St. Pio of Pietrelcina, Joe McClane tells the true story of Emanuele Brunatto, the man Padre Pio called "my policeman." Plus: Oscar-shortlisted director Tod Polson on The 21, his animated film about the 21 martyrs of Libya.

Brunatto had been an actor, a tailor, a jockey and a hustler. In 1920 he went up the mountain to San Giovanni Rotondo to see the friar for himself, and within a couple of years he was living in cell number six, next door to Padre Pio in cell five, serving his Mass every morning. When the friar's enemies went to Rome, the con man became a detective. Two folders for the Cardinal Secretary of State. A book put on the Index within days. A 431-page dossier printed in Leipzig, every copy of which ended up in the Vatican. And a deadline in 1933. Through all of it, Padre Pio told him not to publish, not even to win his own freedom. One man fought, one man obeyed, and both of them loved the Church. And that's their Catholic story.

At 4:30 ET, Tod Polson joins Joe. Polson, a former creative director at Cartoon Saloon whose credits include The Secret of Kells and The Book of Life, spent five years leading more than 70 artists from 24 countries to tell the story of the men killed by ISIS on a Libyan beach in February 2015: twenty Egyptian Copts and one man from Ghana. The 21 is told in the visual language of Coptic iconography, scored by the Ayoub Sisters, executive produced by Jonathan Roumie, and was shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short. Polson on why he told it from the perspective of peace, what the martyrs' families asked of him, and what the West still hasn't learned from 21 men who would not deny Christ.

SCRIPTURE (Douay-Rheims):

• Matthew 5:11 - "Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake."
• Apocalypse 2:10 - "Be thou faithful until death: and I will give thee the crown of life."

REFERENCED:

• Holy Office declaration on Padre Pio (1923)
• Holy See restrictions on Padre Pio (June 1931), lifted by Pope Pius XI (July 1933)
• Canonization of St. Pio of Pietrelcina by Pope St. John Paul II (16 June 2002)
• The 21 martyrs of Libya added to the Roman Martyrology (announced 11 May 2023)

THE 21:

• Watch the film - https://www.the21film.com/

St. Pio of Pietrelcina, pray for us.

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#CatholicMartyrs #CatholicSaints #TraditionalCatholic #ACatholicTake #Catholic

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