St. Leopold excerpt from book cited previously

Page 222.

Father Leopold went to the Capuchin friary in Padua in 1909. Here he remained almost uninterruptedly until his death on July 30, 1942, and for more than thirty years he had his "headquarters"-as he himself put it-in a tiny room annexed between the church and the cloister, a cell without ventilation or sunlight, which was ice-cold in the winter and hot and humid in the summer. Father Leopold sat there for many hours each day in a worn-out armchair so as to bring peace of soul to thousands upon thousands. Hearing confessions for hours on end was practically his only priestly duty for more than thirty years. He had a unique charism for it: in the course of those years thousands of laypeople and numerous priests and bishops-among them one who would later become Pope John Paul I-were instructed and converted, strengthened, consoled, and directed by this wise, enlightened, and kindly confessor. Often they would wait for hours outside Father Leopold's confessional in order to kneel down with confidence at the feet of this little Capuchin priest, to hear his word of forgiveness and to receive his sound advice and his spiritual direction for the future.

God rewarded the apostolic efforts of Father Leopold Mandic in the confessional with quite a few miracles, which he worked even during his lifetime.