Catholic School Teacher "Channels" Padre Pio

Is someone asleep at the wheel?

Dottie Zimmerman is a 63-year-old mother of three, an award-winning religion teacher at a Toledo Catholic school, a former Ursuline nun, and a director of the Children's Theatre Workshop.

For the last five years, Mrs. Zimmerman also says she has been "channeling" Padre Pio, letting the dead Italian Catholic saint mystically speak through her.

It is a "gift," she said, and although she never asked for it she believes she must use it to help others, especially children....

It's for the children...hmmm, where have we heard that before?

Mrs. Zimmerman said in a recent interview that although she doesn't channel Padre Pio publicly very often, she hears from him almost daily.

I'm certain. Does the Diocese of Toledo have any exorcists?

An eighth-grade religion teacher at St. Patrick of Heatherdowns School for nearly 30 years, Mrs. Zimmerman said she felt as though spiritual conversations had been percolating within her for years before she began to explore her gift.

She had dismissed the voices as figments of her overactive imagination.

Figments of an overactive imagination? Color me skeptical...