A Vatican office ordered Padre Pio to stop saying Mass in public, then ruled there was nothing supernatural about his wounds.

This episode of church history follows the most doubted of all the lives of the saints, from the 1918 morning the stigmata appeared, through an atheist doctor, a bottle of carbolic acid, a town that refused to let him go, and hidden microphones in the friary, to the hospital he built. It also asks what his story says about deciding before you've really looked.

Everyday Saints tells the true stories of Catholic saints, separating verified church history from centuries of pious legend — one ordinary saint at a time.

St. Padre Pio is the patron of civil defense volunteers, stress relief, and adolescents. His feast day is September 23.

New saint episodes every Thursday. Questions or ideas for a future episode? Email EverydaySaintsShow@gmail.com or find us on X @EvryDaySaint. More at EverydaySaintsPodcast.com

He flunked Latin, became a priest anyway, and ended up America's first martyr — all because he refused to leave his parish in Guatemala.

Blessed Stanley Rother's story is part of our ongoing look at church history and the lives of the saints — this time, a story that's still being finished, since he's one miracle away from full canonization. This episode's Then and Now segment connects his 1981 martyrdom to missionaries facing the same choice today.

Everyday Saints tells the true stories of Catholic saints, separating verified church history from centuries of pious legend — one ordinary saint at a time.

Blessed Stanley Rother is the patron of those discerning a vocation and of missionaries in dangerous places. His feast day is July 28th.

New saint episodes every Thursday. Questions or ideas for a future episode? Email EverydaySaintsShow@gmail.com or find us on X @EvryDaySaint. More at EverydaySaintsPodcast.com

He built the largest Catholic publishing operation in the world — then volunteered to die in a stranger's place at Auschwitz.

St. Maximilian Kolbe's story includes a childhood vision of two crowns, a media empire built out of a Polish monastery, and a decision in a starvation bunker that took the Church eleven years to properly name. This episode's Truth or Legend checks three claims most retellings skip past.

Everyday Saints tells the true stories of Catholic saints, separating verified church history from centuries of pious legend — one ordinary saint at a time.

St. Maximilian Kolbe is the patron saint of drug addicts, political prisoners, families, journalists, and amateur radio operators. His feast day is August 14th.

New saint episodes every Thursday. Missed our special episode on why Catholics pray to saints? It's in the feed. Got a question for a future one? Email everydaysaintsshow@gmail.com or find us on X @EvryDaySaint. More at everydaysaintspodcast.com