He loved God, loved people (especially the poor) and loved life. He had a great passion for sport, outdoor pursuits, friendship and fun (his nickname was ‘The Terror’ because of his fondness for practical jokes). He broke the mould of how we understand a saint to be – he loved the good things in life and having fun but was also deeply in love with God. He contracted polio and died at the tender age of twenty-four. In 1981 his mortal remains were found to be incorrupt and his body was moved to Turin Cathedral where it is still today. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 20 May 1990.

Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati was born into wealth and privilege in Turin on Holy Saturday, 6 April 1901. His father was the founder and director of the liberal newspaper La Stampa and was involved in politics, first as a senator and then as Italy’s ambassador to Germany. While he was an agnostic and hostile to matters of faith, Pier Giorgio’s mother practised hers but was not overly enthusiastic. Their marriage was not an easy one. Despite this Pier Giorgio was raised a Catholic and developed a deep spiritual life which he was always keen to share and give witness to.

Pier Giorgio joined the St Vincent de Paul Society when he was only seventeen and dedicated most of his spare time to serving the sick, poor and needy. An able and gifted student, his father had hopes that a career in law, politics or journalism beckoned, but Pier Giorgio chose to study mining engineering so that he could, in his own words, ‘serve Christ better among the miners’.

Although deeply devout and committed to the interior life, he had that rare ability to immerse himself also in social and political activism. When he was eighteen he joined the Catholic Student Federation and the Popular Party, a political organization which promoted the Church’s social teaching. He said once, ‘Charity is not enough: we need social reform.’ He also gave his time to help establish a Catholic daily newspaper, Momento, which was based on the principles of Pope St Leo XIII’s encyclical on social and economic matters, Rerum novarum.

Although the Frassati family was affluent, the father was frugal and never gave his two children much spending money. What little he did have, however, Pier Giorgio gave to help the poor, even using his train fare for charity and then running home to be on time for meals in a house where punctuality and frugality were the law. When asked by friends why he often rode third class on the trains he would reply with a smile, ‘Because there is not a fourth class.’

When he was a child a poor mother with a boy in tow came begging to the Frassati home. Pier Giorgio answered the door and, seeing the boy’s shoeless feet, gave him his own shoes. At graduation, given the choice by his father of money or a car he chose the money and gave it to the poor. He obtained a room for a poor old woman evicted from her tenement, provided a bed for a consumptive invalid and supported three children of a sick and grieving widow. He kept a small ledger book containing detailed accounts of his transactions, and while he lay on his death-bed, he gave instructions to his sister, asking her to see to the needs of families who depended on his charity. He even took the time, with a near-paralysed hand, to write a note to a friend in the St Vincent de Paul Society with instructions regarding their weekly Friday visits. Only God knew of these charities; he never mentioned them to others.

At the Italian embassy in Berlin, he was admired by a German news reporter who wrote: ‘One night in Berlin, with the temperature at twelve degrees below zero, he gave his overcoat to a poor old man shivering with cold. His father scolded him, and he replied simply and matter-of-factly: ‘But you see, papa, it was cold.’ 

Pier Giorgio also spent time in the countryside with friends. Mountain climbing was one of his favourite sports. Beneath the smiling exterior of the restless university student was concealed the amazing life of a mystic. Love for Jesus motivated his actions. He assisted at Mass and communion daily, often serving Mass and making a lengthy thanksgiving afterwards.

He felt a strong, mysterious urge to be near the Blessed Sacrament. During nocturnal adoration, he would spend all night on his knees in profound prayer. He prayed the rosary daily on his knees by his bedside and often his father would find him asleep in this position. He influenced other students to make the annual university retreat given by the Jesuits. He loved the rosary and prayed it three times daily after becoming a Dominican tertiary.

He made it a regular habit upon returning from skiing to visit the Blessed Sacrament, and attending Mass before going to the mountains. He wrote to a friend, ‘I left my heart on the mountain peaks and I hope to retrieve it this summer when I climb Mt Blanc. If my studies permitted, I would spend whole days on the mountains admiring in that pure atmosphere the magnificence of God.’ 

Pier Giorgio was a member of the upper class and was comfortable with the refinement of higher education and milieu he moved in. He unashamedly frequented opera, the theatre and museums; he loved art and music and could quote whole chunks of Dante. He also derived great enjoyment from smoking expensive cigars. 

In 1922 he joined the Dominican Third Order, choosing the name Girolamo (Jerome) after his personal hero Savanorola, the Dominican preacher and reformer of Florence’s Renaissance. Despite the many organizations to which Pier Giorgio belonged, he was never passive or joined for the sake of joining. The records show that he was actively involved in each. He was anti-fascist and did nothing to hide his political views.

Participating in a church-organized demonstration once in Rome he withstood police violence and rallied the other young people by grabbing the banner which the police had knocked out of someone else’s hands. He held it even higher while using the pole to ward off their blows. When the demonstrators were arrested by the police, he refused special treatment that he might have received because of his father’s political position, preferring to stay with his friends. One night a group of fascists broke into his family’s home to attack him and his father. Pier Giorgio beat them off single-handedly, chasing them down the street calling them, ‘Blackguards! Cowards!’

In late June 1925 Pier Giorgio was afflicted by an acute attack of poliomyelitis, which doctors later speculated he caught from the poor and sick whom he tended. Neglecting his own health because his grandmother was dying, his illness was too advanced for anyone to treat when doctors discovered how weak he was. Pier Giorgio died on 4 July 1925, at the age of twenty-four. His family expected Turin’s elite and political figures to come to offer their condolences and attend the funeral; they naturally expected to find many of his friends there as well. They were surprised, however, to find the streets of the city lined with thousands upon thousands of mourners as the cortege passed by.

Those who mourned his death most were the poor and needy whom he had served so unselfishly for seven years. Many of these, in turn, were surprised to learn that the saintly young man they knew only as ‘Fra Girolamo’ came from such an influential family. It was these poor people who petitioned the Archbishop of Turin to begin the cause for canonization.

The process was opened in 1932 and he was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 20 May 1990. Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati’s feast day is 4 July.