Pier Giorgio Frassati

The Man of the Beatitudes

Pier Giorgio Frassati was born on April 6, 1901, in Turin, Italy, to one of the most prominent families in the country. His father, Alfredo Frassati, was the founder and editor of the newspaper La Stampa and later served as Italy’s ambassador to Germany. Despite this privilege, Pier Giorgio was drawn not to wealth but to the poor.

An energetic young man who loved mountain climbing, practical jokes, and laughter, Pier Giorgio channeled his boundless energy into charity. He joined the St. Vincent de Paul Society at seventeen and began visiting the sick and destitute in Turin’s worst slums. He gave away his bus money to beggars and walked home; he gave away his overcoat and shivered; he gave away his allowance before the week was out. Much of this charity was done in secret. His own family had no idea of its extent until after his death.

Pier Giorgio joined the Dominican Third Order, taking the name Girolamo, and became active in Catholic political movements opposing Fascism. He studied mining engineering, planning to serve the poor as a mining engineer in the working class.

In the summer of 1925, he contracted poliomyelitis, almost certainly from those he served. His family, distracted by his grandmother’s illness, did not realize the severity until it was too late. He died on July 4, 1925, at just twenty-four years old. His funeral stunned his parents: thousands of poor people they had never met filled the streets of Turin, mourning the young man who had quietly been their angel. Pope John Paul II beatified him in 1990, calling him “the Man of the Eight Beatitudes.” Pope Leo XIV canonized him on September 7, 2025.

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