St. Pier Giorgio Frassati was born on April 6, 1901, in Turin. His father Alfredo was the founder and director of La Stampa, an Italian newspaper, and held positions of power in politics. His mother Adelaide Ametis was a painter.
From a young age, Pier Giorgio was drawn to the Catholic faith. He received his First Holy Communion at the age of 10, and two years later, was given permission to receive the Eucharist daily, which was not common at that time. He joined the Marian Sodality and Apostleship of Prayer. His sister Luciana said that he consecrated himself to the Blessed Virgin Mary at the age of 17.
Despite his family’s wealth, Pier Giorgio was not attracted to a similar lifestyle. He dedicated his life to helping the poor in his city. At age 17, he joined the St. Vincent De Paul Society, and vowed to live a life of service.
Pier Giorgio attended the Polytechnic University of Turin, where he studied mining engineering. At school, he joined Catholic Action and the Catholic Student Foundation. He also became a member of the People’s Party, which promoted the social teachings in Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum. Pier Giorgio participated in public demonstrations against facism, and played a crucial role in the first convention of Pax Romana, an international organization of Catholic students dedicated to promoting peace through unity.
Just before he finished his studies, Pier Giorgio contracted polio, which doctors later believe he got while ministering to the sick. He ignored his symptoms for nearly a week, busy caring for his sick grandmother. Pier Giorgio died on July 4, 1925, at 24 years old. The night before he died, despite suffering from a paralyzed hand, he wrote a message to a friend, asking him to deliver medicine for a sick man he had been taking care of.
Pier Giorgio was known for his love of the outdoors. He was an avid mountain climber, and is remembered often with the phrase “verso l’alto,” which means “to the heights.” He wrote the phrase on a photo taken of him hiking. In a biography, his sister Luciana wrote that her brother “represented the finest in Christian youth: pure, happy, enthusiastic about everything that is good and beautiful.”
In 1990, St. Pope John Paul II beatified Pier Giorgio. In 2017, Juan Gutierrez, a seminarian from Los Angeles, began a novena to Pier Giorgio, asking for healing after tearing his Achilles in a pickup basketball game, and facing a painful surgery and recovery. When Gutierrez went to his consultation with an orthopedic surgeon after completing his novena, his ankle was completely healed. This miracle led to Pier Giorgio’s canonization on Sept. 7, 2025, by Pope Leo XIV.
