A miraculous encounter with a possible future saint

Don Dolindo Ruotolo was admired by St. Padre Pio, and reportedly visited a priest 27 years after Ruotolo's death.

Not many outside Italy know about Don Dolindo Ruotolo, even though St. Padre Pio highly regarded him as a holy man during his life.

Don Dolindo Ruotolo was a Catholic priest in Naples, Italy, dying a natural death on November 19, 1970. He is most well-known for his “Surrender Prayer” that is often prayed as a novena.

According to a Catholic Exchange article, Monsignor Giacomo Pappalardo, a member of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in 1997, met Ruotolo during a miraculous encounter 27 years after Ruotolo’s death.

After celebrating Mass, Pappalardo saw an elderly priest holding a “bag of stones.”

Ruotolo said to Pappalardo after learning of his position, “Are you going to make me a saint?” he exclaimed lightheartedly. “Well, there is one small detail,” Monsignor Pappalardo joked back. “To be proclaimed a saint, you first have to be dead and in heaven!”

A few weeks later a parishioner showed Pappalardo a picture of Ruotolo and he immediately recognized him as the priest he met.

The stones were also a tell-tale sign, as Ruotolo used to hold the bag of stones as an act of penance.

Currently Ruotolo’s cause for canonization is open and he is referred to as a “Servant of God.”