Testimony: Any time I've asked, Padre Pio has helped

"He's always there in the background, ready to help," she says. "Any time I wanted anything he's helped. Whether it was the strength to get through an exam or when I've needed staff, he's always sent help in one form or another."

LONDON (UK Catholic Herald) - Sometimes it's just a feeling that takes Londoners sitting on the Number 11 bus or walking past the McDonald's on Victoria Street or emerging out of the train station on to Vauxhall Bridge Road. Sometimes they don't quite know why they are there. Sometimes they are just drawn by the wealth of devotional images in the show window or the dogs sitting outside the Padre Pio Bookshop in Victoria. Sometimes they are lonely and want someone who will to listen to them; maybe they have lost someone or something, or perhaps they are searching for something.

Whether it is the girl looking for a prayer card to send to her convict husband or the guy who hasn't been inside a church in a decade, or just a curious passer-by, Kathy Kelly has a sympathetic ear and an open secret: St Pio of Pietrelcina, also known as Padre Pio.

"He's always there in the background, ready to help," she says. "Any time I wanted anything he's helped. Whether it was the strength to get through an exam or when I've needed staff, he's always sent help in one form or another. It's just good to know Padre Pio is there, interceding for us."

Kathy has a kindly but brisk manner, a lively knack for telling stories and a generosity that seems to emanate from a genuine love of neighbour.

The bell at the door of the bookshop rings without cease. People come in and out of the narrow shop where prayer cards and books vie for space on shelves. Votive candles flicker in the devotional corner at the back of the shop where an almost life-sized statue of the Capuchin friar stands watch among statues and images of other saints.

Downstairs is a chapel, the altar filled with even more saints and candles. Mass is celebrated there regularly once a week and there is a Precious Blood devotion in the evening of every third Thursday of the month."It's always the joys and the sorrows in here," says Kathy, her Cork accent still heavy though she has lived in London since 1958, when she came over as an 18-year-old to work in St George's Hospital.

Kathy continues: "You know sometimes you say to yourself: 'What's it all about? Is it really needed?' And then someone comes in and says: 'Ah, thank God you're here.' While you do get a lot of people who have problems and worries - stress and jobs and sickness, you name it - you also get the joys.

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"A couple of weeks ago we had a young mum in here. She'd been coming in here for two or three years and couldn't have a family. She'd lost one child and I said: 'OK, give it to Padre Pio.' And of course in a couple of months she got pregnant. But she lost it and we thought: 'Right, let's keep going.'

"She came in the other day with her little nine-day-old baby. As soon as she got out of hospital she came down here [into the chapel] with the baby. It was so sweet. "They were so ecstatic, just over the moon with happiness and that is what makes this worthwhile."

But Kathy says there are also sad moments."You see people who have lost their loved ones, their children have run away. They have fallen away from their faith. They come here - the people who have had abortions, who have brain tumours - but they get solace and the strength to cope with it and there have been a lot of cures. The shop is open all day six days a week and it's just a constant point for many people where they know they can come and pray."

Dog toys litter the floor of the shop and visitors need to beware of stepping on doggie tails. Jasper, the King Charles Spaniel, and Shannon, the German Shepherd cross, are as much part of the shop as Kathy and Padre Pio. A string of dogs have populated the shop over the years and visitors from abroad, returning after many years absence, come to see them as old friends. Kathy's father bred Kerry Blue terriers and she's always had dogs. Many of the people who visit the shop regularly come to see the dogs, not her, she says.

When she arrived in London she was surprised that no one had heard of Padre Pio, who was still alive at the time. In Ireland, she says, everyone was aware of the miracle-working friar. Stella Lilley, who founded the Padre Pio Information Centre in the UK in 1972, knew a lot about the friar and Kathy started learning more. Eventually Stella was asked to open a Padre Pio shop to promote his Cause and Kathy, who was running a pub with her husband, helped her set it up. She never dreamed that she would be running it one day.

In the 1990s Stella's husband became ill and she couldn't run the shop anymore. A buyer was found but he was going to get rid of Padre Pio. Kathy was horrified when she heard the news from a friend after Mass at Westminster Cathedral. How could the shop continue to run without Padre Pio? The shop was Padre Pio. Then someone suggested Kathy take on the challenge of the bookshop. Her husband was still alive and she went home and they discussed taking over the shop, before praying about it together. The lease was due to run out soon anyway so they could give it up if they weren't happy with the project. A "Sunday Catholic", Mr Kelly didn't share his wife's long-standing devotion to Padre Pio, but was aware of him as a benign presence and respected his strength so it was decided. When the lease ran out, they moved to the Vauxhall Bridge Road where the shop now stands. Keeping the shop open wasn't always easy. They turned the basement into a cafe to keep it going for a while and eventually realised that the need for a quiet place to pray was so great that they turned it into a chapel.

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"The shop has become a sideline," says Kathy. "It used to be the other way round. Shop first then prayer, but now the prayer has become the main thing. You see all kinds of people who come in for Padre Pio.

"We get quite a number of people 20 or 30 years away from the faith. Non-Catholics also. It is the half-way road for many of them. You can get them in here chatting away but you couldn't get them into the Cathedral. And then gently gently - it might take one or two visits - sometimes it only takes the one when the priest is there. They just need that little bit of courage. Then the priest encourages it and suddenly before you know it they are back in the Church.

"You see, it's not you that's doing any of this. The door is open and it's there and God works his own way around it and takes each and every one of them at their own pace. You hear so many stories, but often you never find out how they end."

The Padre Pio Bookshop is at 64 Vauxhall Bridge Road, Victoria, London SW1V 1BB. Tel 020 7834 5363