Dottie Zimmerman, the Toledo woman who channels dead Italian Saint Padre Pio, called me yesterday to say she has officially retired as a teacher in the local Catholic school system.
She is at peace with the move and so is Padre Pio, she said.
Dottie is not looking for any controversy and is genuinely fine with the outcome, but she just wanted to let me know how things developed since I was concerned from the start for her job. She acknowledged it was the publicity generated by my reporting that led to her early retirement. The first few weeks after the article ran, she was in a panic, she said. But in the end, church officials offered a fair economic deal and she is OK with everything.
Dottie said church officials told her she had done a fine job as a teacher for 40 years and actually said it was okay for her to channel a canonized Catholic saint. But she had gone too far, she said she was told, because she also channels her dead mother and her late husband.
Isn't that interesting.
* * *
Sylvania, Ohio
July 29, 2008