Padre Pio was "seized by Christ" to become "a chosen instrument of the perennial power of his Cross: the power of love for souls, forgiveness and reconciliation, spiritual fatherhood, effective solidarity with the suffering." This was Pope Benedicts message this morning in mass celebrated in the square before the new church of Saint Pio of Pietrelcina in San Giovanni Rotondo. In front of thirty thousand faithful, Benedict XVI recalled that the holy Friar from Gargano "preserved his natural gifts, and even his temperament, but he offered everything to God, so he could use them to extend the work of Christ" . Because living in Christ does not mean alienation, said the Pope, or loss of personality: "