Matteo Pio Colella was a seven-year-old boy from San Giovanni Rotondo who, on January 20, 2000, was admitted to Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza — the hospital that Padre Pio himself had founded — with fulminant meningococcal meningitis and rapidly progressive multiorgan failure. By January 31 he was in deep coma, on full life support; six of nine vital organs had failed; his pupils were fixed and dilated; CT scan showed extensive cerebral oedema. The treating physicians told his parents that he would die that night and that there was no further treatment.
His mother, Antonietta Colella, was a parishioner of the friary where Bl. Padre Pio's body lay. That evening she and the friars and many other parishioners gathered in extended prayer through the friary night, asking Padre Pio's intercession. Matteo's father later reported that during the night he experienced a vivid sense of Padre Pio's presence in the boy's hospital room.
By morning Matteo's pupils responded. By the second day he was off ventilator support. By the seventh day he was discharged with no neurological deficit and no organ damage. The cure was investigated by the Vatican medical commission for Padre Pio's canonization; on December 20, 2001 the commission unanimously declared the cure medically inexplicable. Bl. Padre Pio was canonised on June 16, 2002 by John Paul II — on the basis of this miracle. Matteo lives a normal life; he and his mother are well known in San Giovanni Rotondo.