Pier Giorgio Frassati

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Pier Giorgio Frassati
Pier Giorgio Frassati in his father's office
Pier Giorgio Frassati in his father's office
Born April 6, 1901 ( Turin )
Deceased July 4, 1925 ( Turin )
beatification May 20, 1990 by John Paul II.
Holiday 4. July
Place of worship Turin Cathedral

Pier Giorgio Frassati (born April 6, 1901 in Turin ; † July 4, 1925 there ) was an Italian prospective mining engineer, alpinist and terziar of the Dominican Order . He is venerated as a blessed in the Roman Catholic Church .

Life

Pier Giorgio Frassati comes from a middle class family in Turin. His father Alfredo Frassati , himself an agnostic , was the founder and director of the Italian daily La Stampa and a diplomat. Among other things, he was the Italian ambassador in Berlin from 1920 to 1922.

Without his family noticing, he put himself at the service of the poor from the slums of Turin early on, later through the Vincent Conferences founded by Frédéric Ozanam on the model of Saint Vincent de Paul , of which he had been a member since 1918.

In 1919 he joined the Catholic Student Union and the Catholic Action , after having started studying mining sciences at the Technical University of Turin the previous year . As a motivation for choosing a career, he stated that as a mining engineer he could better serve Christ “among the miners”.

From 1921 he became politically active in the Italian People's Party , which was dedicated to the principles of Catholic social teaching . During his father's tenure as ambassador to Germany, he spent some time as a guest student in Berlin and in Freiburg im Breisgau with the family of the theologian Karl Rahner . In the same year he took part in the first congress of the Pax Romana Association .

In 1922 he joined the Third Order of the Dominicans . With some friends he founded the "Society of Opaque Types" in 1924, who wanted to cultivate their spirituality during extensive Alpine hikes.

After one of his visits to the slums, he fell ill with polio in 1925 , from which he died after six days of illness on July 4th, the day before his exams as a mining engineer, at the age of 24. To the surprise of his family, to whom he had largely hidden his charitable work, thousands paid their last respects to his bier. Great veneration quickly set in and the deceased served as a role model and namesake for many Catholic youth groups. In 1981, the first buried in Pollone near Turin was exhumed and the body was found unwests; he was then buried in a side chapel of Turin Cathedral.

Adoration and Beatification

In 1987 Frassati was made a venerable servant of God by Pope John Paul II ; on May 20, 1990, John Paul Pier Giorgio Frassati beatified. The Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. presented Frassati, the "Man of the Eight Beatitudes ", to the participants as patron saint and role model for the holiness of the laity at various World Youth Days .

literature

in order of appearance

  • Helene Moser: Pier Giorgio Frassati, a modern bearer of Christ . Ars sacra publishing house, Munich 1932.
  • Josef Stierli: Pier Giorgio Frassati. A life of faith . Kanisiuswerk, Freiburg im Üechtland 1938.
  • Paul H. Schmidt: Pier Giorgio Frassati 1901–1925. A role model for following Christ in difficult times . Publishing house Marianischer Digest, Bern 1993.
  • Carla Casalegno: Pier Giorgio Frassati. Una vita di preghiera . Piemme, Casale Monferrato 1988, ISBN 88-384-1256-1 .
  • Carla Casalegno: Pier Giorgio Frassati . Effatà Editrice, Cantalupa 2013, ISBN 978-88-7402-871-9 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Frassati, Pier Giorgio
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian alpinist and member of the Dominican lay order
DATE OF BIRTH April 6, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Turin
DATE OF DEATH 4th July 1925
Place of death Turin