The Grinding Shed: baggy_dog - Viewing Profile

The side of a car that arrived in Barga with scratched into the paintwork the words "Viva Padre Pio"

Somebody actually felt it was the thing to scratch into the paintwork of a car ....the name of an Italian saint !

I have been posting news and articles about the rise of this new italian saint for a couple of years as it really is a popular movement crossing all classes and barriers ... (Lady Die is going to have to go some to get this kind of movement behind her)

Since his canonisation in 2002, he has been St Pius. But for his devotees - it is estimated there are 15 million worldwide - he will always be Padre Pio, an ill-educated Capuchin monk with supernatural powers who bore the marks of Christ's crucifixion.

Yesterday, his global cult acquired a shrine of appropriate size and splendour, when a huge basilica was consecrated on the mountainous promontory where Padre Pio lived his simple, though intensely controversial, life.

The new church of San Giovanni Rotondo can hold a congregation of 7,000, with space for more than 30,000 outside.

The €35m (£23m) cost of the building, which took 10 years to design and build, has been met entirely by contributions from the faithful.

San Giovanni Rotondo in Puglia has become the world's second-most visited place of pilgrimage after Guadalupe in Mexico.

Last year, the number of visitors soared by more than a third after the Pope announced that pilgrims qualified for a total remission of their sins.

The cult of Padre Pio has generated a £35m tourist business in a once-poor area*. It has also given rise to an ugly sprawl of cheap hotels and trinket shops that Mr Piano's elegant, low-lying dome will do much to dignify.

Celebrated for his designs for the Pompidou Centre in Paris and Osaka airport, Mr Piano initially turned down entreaties from the Capuchin monks. Yesterday, he admitted to continued mixed feelings. "It's a mixed-up world that surrounds Padre Pio," he said.

"There is confusion between the sacred - himself and his miracles - and all the commercialisation that surrounds him." source

caio
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P.S * chicken feed compared to what is coming with this business

<flame on>

Both were/are from upper middles class families.

Both fought away from home.

Both affected a style of dress that was not their own.

Straggly beards plus unwashed almost grungy look.

One is a beloved youth figure/hero of most of the world left.

...the other one is a beloved youth figure/hero for many of a dispossessed and unhappy muslim generation.

The western press can say what it wants but these two are moving together in the eyes of many people .... now why is ?

ciao
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</flame on>

At least half, and perhaps as many as two-thirds, of people who begin smoking in their youth are eventually killed by the habit, according to a mammoth 50-year medical study by British researchers released Tuesday

The report in the British Medical Journal is the second part of a study that began in 1951. The publication's first report on the study in June 1954 was considered a landmark, confirming the link between smoking and lung cancer.

The second part of the study tracked the same participants for the past 50 years and highlights the findings that kicking the habit can add years to the lives of former smokers.

full story here

But the bit that caught my eye was a bit further down in the report which said that:

Those who stopped at the age of 60 gained three years of life.
Those who quit at 50 gained six years.
Those who stopped smoking at 40 gained nine years of life expectancy.

Those who kick the habit at 30 the increased risk was avoided almost totally

SO THERE YOU HAVE IT FOLKS!!!!

Smoke as much as look like till you hit the big 30 and then stop.

GOOD NEWS FOR MOST OF THE PEOPLE ON THIS BOARD NO ?

ciao
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ciao
db