Beatification process of Luisa Piccarreta suspended

The file is suspended. The Catholic Church will not beatify Luisa Piccarreta, an Italian mystic known for her spiritual exercises centered on union with the will of God

On January 24, Bishop Benoît Bertrand of Mende, president of the French bishops’ Episcopal Doctrinal Commission, shared a message from the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints addressed to the bishops of France. The message conveyed the decision to halt the examination of the case of Luisa Piccarreta, initiated in 1994 by the now deceased Italian Archbishop Giovanni Battista Pichierri of Trani. 

Why does the Church reproach this Italian mystic, who has been gaining interest among priests and laypeople in recent years? Bishop Bertrand repeats the arguments put forward by the dicastery, which are of three kinds: theological, Christological, and anthropological. Piccarreta's conception of the divine will "does not leave man the possibility to exercise his free will," it does not incorporate "the primacy of God's merciful and unconditional love," and, finally, there is "little or no mention of the resurrection of Christ," "Christian hope, and ecclesial communion."

Bishop Bertrand, therefore, advises caution regarding the dissemination of Piccarreta's message, echoing the warning of Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, who had asked him in a April 18, 2022 letter, to "accordingly evaluate the popular dissemination of such elements to avoid confusion among believers." 

Messenger of the "divine will"? 

Piccarreta was born in 1865 in the province of Bari, in the south of Italy. According to her, she bore the stigmata invisibly. Ill and bedridden from the age of 16 until her death in 1947, she joined the Third Order of Saint Dominic at the age of 18. Five years later, she said she experienced a mystical marriage. "The Holy Trinity took possession of my heart," she recounts in her writings -- and felt called to "live in the Divine Will" and to become its messenger.

The Archbishop of Trani at that time assigned her a special confessor. He set limits on her mortifications by ordering her to eat at least once a day. Until her death, she would have confessors assigned by successive archbishops of her archdiocese.

Starting February 28, 1891, at the request of her spiritual director at the time, she began writing a diary recounting her mystical experiences. It took the form of 36 handwritten notebooks, totaling about 10,000 pages. In 1938, she stopped her writings on the order of her confessor, following the placing of her first three volumes on the Index by the Holy Office that lists publications deemed heretical or contrary to morality.

In 1987, an association to make her life known, “Associazione Luisa Piccarreta” was founded -- even though her writings had been placed on the Index. Twice, the Vatican's Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith declined to provide its "nihil obstat" (no objection) for the advancement of her beatification process due to concerns regarding her writings. However, she was eventually declared a Servant of God after passing a preliminary, diocesan stage for sainthood in the Catholic Church in 2005 and advancing her cause for beatification. Since then, her popularity has grown through the Internet, and Catholic groups have even formed to study her writings.