Frassati, Pier Giorgio

FRASSATI, PIER GIORGIO. - Servant of God, b. in Turin on 6 April 1901, d. there on 4 July 1925. His formation was shaped, besides by his family upbringing, by his membership in Catholic organizations: the Marian Congregation at the Jesuits; the Dominican Third Order; the F. U. C. I.; the Conferences of St. Vincent, of which he was a most zealous confrere. A candidate for a degree in industrial mining engineering, death struck him down in three days. An advocate of social Christianity, he was active in the Partito Popolare, until the advent of Fascism, from which, like his father, he received threats and persecution. His fame was spread by the Testimonianze della vita (A. Cojazzi, P. G. F., Turin 1928), which by 1949 had reached one hundred thousand copies, in addition to translations into fifteen European languages and summaries in Japanese and Chinese.

In the inspiration of St. Paul, St. Catherine and Savonarola, he realized the experience of a Christianity understood as a visible and permanent relationship of the conscience with God. Putting it into practice in the essential values of industrious brotherhood, of consistency and simplicity of life, and of a just enjoyment of nature, he bore witness to his contemporaries of the perennial and unceasing adaptation of Christ's doctrine to the needs of every age. At the initiative of Card. G. Gamba, archbishop of Turin, the Curia opened and carried to completion, subsequently transmitting the acts to Rome, the informative process of this servant of God.

Antonio Cojazzi