Catholics, above all people, have an antidote to sterile materialism of modernity. Sanctity, it turns out, unlocks the doors of perception, and weakens the grip of mono-materialism.
One of my favourite saints has become Padre Pio – partly because so many of the miraculous events surrounding his life took place under the scrutiny of 20th-century scepticism, which makes hagiography a good deal harder.
The first time I came across Padre Pio was when my stepmother’s eccentric slot-machine-addicted Irish Catholic diminutive elderly best friend planned a visit together to go and visit the blood-soaked glove of a friar who had recently died in Pietrelcina.
