In 1965, Fr John Iacono found himself confessor number 718 in a long line for Reconciliation with Padre Pio.
He had just spent a month travelling from Sydney to Italy by boat and was only scheduled to be in San Giovanni Rotondo for one day before entering the seminary in Naples.
But a three-week wait to meet the famed priest miraculously shrunk to three hours.
“Somebody’s name was called but they weren’t there, so I went in,” Fr John said.
“I hadn’t opened my mouth, I didn’t say anything. As soon as I walked in, he said to me, ‘you are here abusively! You didn’t follow the system!’
“I was still sitting down to go to confession to him, I hadn’t spoken a word, not anything. And he said to me, ‘You are entering the seminary because you are going to study for the priesthood. And you’re going to find it very difficult in your studies.’”
What Padre Pio told Fr John soon unravelled in the years that came.
He spent years in the seminary, repeatedly failing his subjects. But all the while Fr John remembered the words in San Giovanni.
At each term’s end the rector would push for Fr John’s departure, to which he gave the same reply each time.
“‘The Holy Spirit and I are staying.’ And we did, and after a difficult while I passed and later returned to Sydney,” he said.
“How Padre Pio would know that all to pass was a mystery to me, it was his gift.
“You’d go to confession and he would tell you everything about yourself. If you didn’t confess everything for whatever reason, he would tell you the time, the place, the action, whatever it was.”
Fr John was also curious, more than anything, about the stigmata this priest carried.
He remembers attending Padre Pio’s Mass the same day which would last almost four hours.
“He would go into complete ecstasy. He wouldn’t wear gloves because he was bleeding one cup of blood, from his hand feet and sides.”
This encounter remained an encouraging motivator throughout Fr John’s priestly ministry.
In his 48 years of priesthood, the retired clergyman raised funds for several apostolates in both the Archdiocese of Sydney and in the Philippines, assisting the young and the poor across countries.
In Cebu he spearheaded housing projects for nearly 500 low-income families, a day-care centre caring for over 200 children, and outreach programs to fund chapels and hearing-impaired programs.
Now in his retirement Fr John remains on call to nine hospitals.
He carries Padre Pio’s memory in his heart and honours him through his continuing call to action.
“Padre Pio’s legacy was that he offered himself as a suffering victim for his spiritual children. I hope in my lifetime God feels I have done the same.”
