Chapter 13, Holiness or Hysteria?, Chapter 14, The Rumor of Sanctity, Chapter 15, The Friar and the Archbishop Summary and Analysis

No instances of the stigmata appear before the thirteenth century, until St. Francis of Assisi, who bears the wounds for two years until his death. St. Francis has a side wound on his right, like Jesus, though Pio's is on the left. Francis's piercings seem to be from nails, but not Pio's. For the next seven hundred years, four hundred people, nearly all Roman Catholic, female and Italian claim to have it. Pio has several stigmatic contemporaries, such as a Bavarian laywoman named Therese Neumenn who also experiences bilocations, visions and the like. The author then reviews other cases.

There is no doubt that Pio's hands bleed for fifty years. Thousands of people...