The Secret Letters Between John Paul II and Padre Pio: Miracles, Friendship, and Faith
- Gurso
- Dec 4, 2025
- 6 min read
The Secret Letters Between John Paul II and Padre Pio
There are stories in the Church that sound almost like a spiritual novel. One of them is the story of the secret letters between John Paul II and Padre Pio: a few short lines in Latin, written between 1962 and 1963, that changed people’s lives forever and revealed the mysterious bond between two future saints. Behind that correspondence we find tears, illness, prayer – and above all a boundless trust in the power of God acting through the intercession of His friends.
To really understand the meaning of those letters, we need to go back to the very first encounter between a young Polish priest named Karol Wojtyła and the stigmatized friar of San Giovanni Rotondo.
A Friendship Between Saints Born in Silence
It is 1948. Karol Wojtyła has recently been ordained a priest and is in Italy to study. During that period he decides to travel to San Giovanni Rotondo, drawn by the fame of a Capuchin friar everyone is talking about: Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, the man who bears on his body the wounds of Christ.
We do not know every detail of their meeting, but the sources tell us that a deep bond was born between the two. In the midst of the crowd of pilgrims, the young Polish priest went to confession to Padre Pio and opened his heart to him. That day, the friar entrusted him with a secret that for many years would be known only to a few: a hidden wound on his shoulder, even more painful than the visible stigmata.
According to the testimonies, when Wojtyła asked which wound hurt the most, Padre Pio did not point to his hands, feet or side, but simply said that it was the wound on his shoulder, unknown to everyone and never treated.
After his death, a large bloodstain on the habit near the shoulder blade would confirm the existence of this mysterious wound, often linked to the injury Christ would have suffered while carrying the cross on His shoulders.
For Karol Wojtyła, that meeting was decisive. In that suffering friar, yet totally abandoned to God, the young priest saw a model of union with Christ that would accompany him for the rest of his life.
The Secret Letters Between John Paul II and Padre Pio: The Wanda Półtawska Case
Years passed. By 1962, Karol Wojtyła was no longer a young student, but auxiliary bishop of Kraków. He was in Rome for the Second Vatican Council when he received terrible news: his close friend Wanda Półtawska, a doctor and mother of four daughters, had been diagnosed with an advanced, aggressive cancer.
Wanda was not just any friend. During the Nazi occupation she had been deported to a concentration camp; in that context a deep spiritual friendship had developed between her and Wojtyła. Now this woman, already marked by the horror of the camps, found herself facing a hopeless diagnosis.
Bishop Wojtyła knew exactly whom to turn to. He took a sheet of letterhead from the Curia of Kraków and wrote a letter in Latin to Padre Pio. In what would become one of the most famous secret letters between John Paul II and Padre Pio, the future pope asked the friar to pray for “a mother of four daughters, forty years old, from Kraków, now in very grave danger of health and life because of cancer.”
He did not mention Wanda’s name, but he carefully described her situation, recalling her imprisonment in the concentration camp. He begged that God, through the intercession of the Most Blessed Virgin, would show mercy to this woman and to her family.
The letter was delivered to Padre Pio through a mutual friend, Angelo Battisti, who worked in the Vatican. According to his account, after hearing the letter, the friar pronounced a short but striking phrase:
“We cannot say no to this.”
A few days later, when the doctors were preparing Wanda for surgery, something unexpected happened: against all medical predictions, the tumor had completely disappeared. The doctors spoke of an inexplicable healing. Wanda herself would later testify how she slowly came to understand the role of Padre Pio’s intercession in that event.
Karol Wojtyła, shaken and deeply grateful, could not remain silent. He took up his pen again and wrote a second secret letter to Padre Pio, again in Latin, in order to give thanks. In that letter he wrote that the woman from Kraków “has instantly regained her health before surgery” and that he, her husband and the whole family gave thanks to God and to the friar of the Gargano.
On reading the second letter, Padre Pio is said to have replied simply: “Let us thank God.”Then he gave both letters back to Angelo Battisti with the words: “Keep these two letters.” It is as if the friar sensed that one day those pages would become a testimony for the whole Church.
Today we know that this was not an isolated episode. Researchers have found traces of at least three letters sent by Wojtyła to Padre Pio asking for prayer for gravely ill people, each connected with extraordinary healings.
Miracles, Suffering, and Prayer: What These Letters Teach Us
The secret letters between John Paul II and Padre Pio are not just historical curiosities for lovers of hagiography. They are above all a great spiritual lesson.
Trust in intercessory prayerAs bishop of a country oppressed by a communist regime, Wojtyła does not ask Padre Pio for political advice or pastoral strategies. He asks him to pray. He firmly believes that the prayer of a hidden friar in a convent on the Gargano can change the concrete history of a person – and in fact, that is exactly what happens.
The communion of saints is real and aliveThe spiritual friendship between these two men of God is not made of big speeches, but of Masses offered, brief letters, and sufferings carried in silence. On one side, a friar offering his hidden wounds; on the other, a bishop carrying the weight of his people. In between are the lives of many ordinary people who experience God’s mercy.
Offered suffering can become fruitfulThe secret of the sixth wound on Padre Pio’s shoulder reminds us that the most fruitful sufferings are often the ones no one sees. John Paul II would understand this personally, especially in the final years of his pontificate, when he offered his sicknesses as part of his service to the Church.
Miracles are not “magic” but signs of God’s loveThe healing of Wanda Półtawska is not a spectacle meant to impress the world. It is the discreet sign of a God who hears the cry of His children and uses the prayer of a hidden friar to give a mother back to her family and a precious collaborator back to the Church.
How the Secret Letters Between John Paul II and Padre Pio Speak to Us Today
What do these secret letters between John Paul II and Padre Pio say to us today?
Perhaps there is also a “Wanda” in our lives: a loved one who is sick, a family in crisis, a situation that seems humanly hopeless. Or, more simply, maybe we ourselves are carrying a “wound on the shoulder” that no one sees: a hidden worry, an inner wound, a sin that has weighed on us for years.
These stories invite us to do three very concrete things:
Never lose trust in prayer.Faced with an exam, an operation, an impossible situation, we can do what Karol Wojtyła did: symbolically write our own “letter” to a saint we feel close to, and ask for his or her intercession.
Offer our sufferings united with Christ’s.Padre Pio’s sixth wound was not a morbid detail but the sign of a love willing to carry the weight of others. We can unite our physical, psychological, and spiritual pain to the Lord, asking that it become grace for someone.
Recognize the small miracles of everyday life.Not every miracle is as spectacular as Wanda’s healing. Sometimes the miracle is an unexpected peace in the heart, reconciliation in a family, or a new strength to carry a cross that once crushed us. These too are signs of God’s love reaching us through prayer.
In the end, these letters remind us of one simple but decisive truth: we are not alone in our battles. Between heaven and earth there is an invisible network of friendship, made of saints who intercede, brothers and sisters who pray, and crosses carried together.
May the friendship between John Paul II and Padre Pio help us believe that every prayer, even the most hidden one, can cross the world and reach the Heart of God. And may we never forget what Padre Pio himself loved to repeat:
“Prayer is the best weapon we have; it is a key that opens the Heart of God.”
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