Pier Giorgio Frassati: Friendship as a path to holiness

While Catholic youth ministers and young adult group leaders all over the world think he’s a rock star, most Catholics have never heard of him. Since Pier Giorgio Frassati (1901-1925) is scheduled to be declared a saint on September 7, there is no better time for everyone to learn about this young man’s inspiring story.

Pier Giorgio and his sister Luciana were born in Turin, Italy. Their father, Alfredo, was the powerful and influential director of a newspaper, and their mother, Adelaide, was an accomplished painter. Unfortunately, Adelaide and Alfredo, who were so driven to success in their separate fields, did not have much in common. They quarreled hotly and often, and Luciana later described the atmosphere in her family as a nightmare. She said her childhood was clouded by constant tension between her parents, as well as verbal fights and threats of marital separation.

Although raised a Catholic, Alfredo had become an agnostic. Adelaide was Catholic and taught her children to pray, but she was an emotionally demanding mother. When the two children were young, they were kept entirely at home and were permitted virtually no outside friends.

When they were old enough to be sent to Catholic schools for their education, it became obvious that Luciana was a gifted student. Pier Giorgio, on the other hand, always struggled in his studies. Pier Giorgio’s parents constantly compared him, unfavorably, to his sister, and Adelaide was particularly quick to belittle and criticize her son. Fortunately, although Pier Giorgio and Luciana had occasional sibling squabbles, the two children always remained the best of friends.

While Pier Giorgio’s family life was certainly not ideal, he was one of those blessed souls who believed in God from a young age and never seemed to waver in that trust. His faith in God was simply part of who he was. He prayed the rosary and loved to receive Holy Communion.

As a teenager, he developed many friendships and was known as the life of the party. He climbed mountains, skied, and played practical jokes. He drank, smoked, and fiercely argued about politics.

But his friends noticed that Pier Giorgio quietly prayed the rosary on the train as they traveled to their outdoor expeditions to the mountains. They saw that his pranks were funny but never cruel. They learned about Catholic social teaching from him when they discussed current events. They saw him drink and smoke, but in moderation. And as a natural leader, he also moderated his friends’ sometimes rowdy behavior.

Pier Giorgio’s family was wealthy. Rather than pursue a lucrative career among his upper-class relatives, he chose to study mining engineering so that he could improve the working conditions of those who worked in underground mines.

Pier Giorgio was a busy young man as a college student. He had to work late every night to keep up with his classes, which was a particular challenge for him since he was only an average student. He joined Catholic Action, an organization dedicated to promoting the influence of the faith in society, and he attended their regular meetings and conferences. He became a third-order Dominican, taking the first name of the controversial fifteenth-century priest Girolama Savoranola. Pier Giorgio admired Girolama’s willingness to fight for a just cause and his commitment to virtue. Pier Giorgio was also a member of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul because of his concern for the poor.

When Pier Giorgio was very young, he had impulsively offered his shoes to a poor man who asked for alms at the Frassati home. That attitude of selfless generosity did not change as he grew up. But, remembering Christ’s admonition to care for the needy without bragging to others,¹ Pier Giorgio simply neglected to tell his family that he had developed a large, diverse circle of friends among the poorest citizens of Turin.

It all started very small. One day, a stranger approached Pier Giorgio and asked for his help. Pier Giorgio said yes. That poor man told others about the generous young man, and those people told even more people. Soon, Pier Giorgio had developed a reputation throughout Turin as someone who was willing to help the poor. For example, he helped an evicted family pack up their goods and move to a new home. He found a doctor for a sick man and even paid for the medicines the man needed. He volunteered at a nearby hospital, where he personally fed children who were blind, deaf, and mute.

So many people asked him for help that he would often give away all the cash he had on him, even though that meant he had to walk home because he couldn’t pay for public transportation. When a wealthy relative offered Pier Giorgio the choice of a car or the equivalent amount of money as a graduation present, he chose the money so that he could use it to help his friends, the poor.

And that is an important distinction. Pier Giorgio did not become a one-man charitable organization because he wanted to help anonymous “humanity”, but because he wanted to help his friends. He remembered Christ’s command to “do unto others as you would have others do unto you”,² and he lived it out.

Alfredo had simply ignored Pier Giorgio’s plan of study. He assumed that his son would work at his newspaper after graduation, not in some dirty underground mine. Just as Pier Giorgio was about to graduate with an engineering degree, Alfredo’s preference became a demand. Pier Giorgio, who was always an obedient son to his difficult parents, quietly acquiesced.

Although he had been a healthy young man, Pier Giorgio began to lose weight due to his long hours spent studying and serving the needy. His family did not notice the change. On June 30, 1925, Pier Giorgio told them that he felt sick. Since his grandmother was seriously ill at the time, they simply sent him to bed. A few days later he was still sick in bed, so they sent for the doctor. He diagnosed the young man with poliomyelitis, which Pier Giorgio had almost certainly contracted while caring for a sick man. Although the family cared for him as well as they could, it was too late. Pier Giorgio died peacefully of that deadly disease on July 4.

His devastated parents experienced another shock at their son’s funeral. The huge crowd of mourners who attended the Mass did not come because of the well-known Frassati name. Granted, many were members of his extended family, school classmates, members of the Catholic groups to which he belonged, and even those from his small circle of intimate friends. However, the thousands of men and women who lined the streets of Turin were the poor. They mourned the loss not of a benefactor, but of a true friend.

The stories that his parents heard from these strangers turned their lives upside down. They learned about their son’s many hidden acts of charity, as well as his Christian virtue and kindness to others. Gradually, Alfredo and Adelaide came to the realization that their son had been a saint. Pier Giorgio’s sudden death eventually brought his father back to the Catholic faith and led his parents to a permanent marital reconciliation.

Pier Giorgio has been nicknamed the “Man of the Beatitudes” for the way he lived his life, but he could also be called a “man of miracles” for the events that have occurred since his death. The first miracle (although the Vatican did not count it as such) was his father’s return to the Church and his parents’ reconciliation. In 1933, a forty-year-old Italian man who was gravely ill with tuberculosis prayed for Pier Giorgio’s intercession. The man was inexplicably healed and lived for another three decades. In 1981, Pier Giorgio’s body was exhumed and found to be incorrupt. In 2017, an American seminarian suffered a serious tear to his Achilles tendon while playing basketball. Faced with a large medical bill that he wasn’t sure he could pay, a long, painful recovery, and a delay in his studies to become a priest, he begged Pier Giorgio for help while at Adoration. A few weeks later, his orthopedic surgeon could find no sign of a tear and had no explanation of how the injury could have simply disappeared.

Pier Giorgio showed that he was a holy man through his love of God and neighbor, and he particularly demonstrated that through the gift of friendship. He demonstrated that being a friend, “a person whom one knows and loves well and by whom one is known and loved for virtuous reasons,”³ is not only an act of charity but also a means of Christian witness. Pier Giorgio evangelized thousands of people about the love of Jesus Christ simply through friendship.

When the Catholic Church declares Pier Giorgio Frassati to be a saint on September 7, it will be a recognition of this young man’s heroic offering of his life for the poor. And Heaven will have a new patron saint for mountain climbers, troubled families, mediocre students, and great friends.

Endnotes:
¹ Matt 6:2-4.