Saint Pier Giorgio Frassati

Pier Giorgio Frassati was born in Turin on 6 April 1901, which was Holy Saturday. His father, Alfredo, was an agnostic who owned the liberal newspaper La Stampa, later served in the Senate, and was appointed ambassador to Germany. His mother, Adelaide Ametis, was a painter, and the king bought some of her work at an exhibition in Venice. Pier Giorgio had one sister, Luciana. Faith was not at the center of the household, but it found its way into his heart anyway.

His generosity showed early. As a small boy, he once answered the door to a begging mother with a barefoot child, and he took off his own shoes and gave them to the child. In 1909, when his father turned away a drunk man, the boy told his mother, sobbing, and she sent him to find the man and bring him home for a meal. He was an average student and failed his exams in 1913, after which he was sent to the Jesuit Istituto Sociale. He later enrolled in mechanical engineering with a mining specialty so that he could be close to the miners, then thought of as the most exploited of workers. He never finished the degree in his lifetime. Turin granted him an honorary one in 2002.

Instead of studying, he gave his time to prayer, the Eucharist, and charity. He joined the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, Catholic Action, and the Catholic university federation, along with nearly every other Catholic association in the city, and he became a lay Dominican. He walked through Turin among the poor and sick, which his father scorned as wandering about. Alfredo called him a useless man. Pier Giorgio took the reproaches with the same calm, cheerful face he showed to the people he helped, and he chose to stay at home with his family. He loved the mountains, and his motto, verso l'alto, "toward the heights," fit both his climbing and his faith.

He died on 4 July 1925, struck by a sudden paralysis, at the age of twenty-four. John Paul II beatified him on 20 May 1990 and called him the "Man of the Eight Beatitudes." Pope Leo XIV canonized him on 7 September 2025, together with Carlo Acutis. Young people, students, and mountaineers look to him as their patron.

Saint Pier Giorgio Frassati, pray for us.