The veneration took place from July 26 to August 4.
Pope Leo XIV will canonize Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis on September 7.
On Saturday, July 26, 2025, the Holy Mass celebrated at 6:00 p.m. in the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva by Cardinal Baldassare Reina, the Pope’s Vicar General for the Diocese of Rome, marked the official opening of the program of veneration for the incorrupt body of Pier Giorgio Frassati, a layman of the Dominican Third Order. His body was brought for the first time to Rome from the Cathedral of Turin on the occasion of the Jubilee of Young People.
“Pier Giorgio Frassati teaches a society enslaved by social media about ‘true sociability, which is love for the poor.’ Social media is a minefield where one risks wasting a great deal of energy. Pier Giorgio tells us that if we want to socialize, we must do so with the poor,” Cardinal Reina emphasized in his homily. “We are tempted to think we are united because we are hyperconnected, but we are alone, with a loneliness that kills. Pier Giorgio teaches us the power of prayer to prevent loneliness from becoming isolation. He teaches us that in just 24 years of life, one can reach the goal of a life fully realized in God. Let us ask for his intercession to live our lives well,” the prelate concluded.
In recent days, thousands of young people have come to venerate the incorrupt body of Pier Giorgio Frassati at Santa Maria sopra Minerva, where it will remain on display for veneration until August 4. It is placed before the tomb of Saint Catherine of Siena, who has been, for all Dominican tertiaries, including Pier Giorgio, an inspiring model of a lay life within a religious order — the Order of Saint Dominic. The future saint always expressed his joy at belonging to the Dominican family and his fervent desire to live out its charism, as attested by a letter to a friend who would later follow him into the Third Order.
“I am delighted that you want to be part of the great family of St. Dominic, where, as Dante says, “Ben s’impingua se non si si vaneggia” (One gains much if one does not stray into vanity). There are very few obligations, for as you must certainly understand that I could not belong to an order that imposes many obligations. When the Saint established the Third Order, he established it as a militia to fight against heretics, and at that time they had very strict rules, following closely the ancient Rule of the First Order, but now it has been transformed and there is no longer any trace of strict obligations. One should recite the Dominican Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary or the Rosary every day, but even if one deliberately omits to recite it for one or several days, one does not commit a mortal sin. I hope that you will make your profession in the magnificent church in Turin, and then I will be close to you to give you a brotherly embrace; for you who are already bound to me by the bonds of brotherhood through the Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, you will be doubly so because we have Saint Dominic as our common father. I would very much like you to take the name of Bro Jerome, not because it is the name I have as a son of St. Dominic, but because it reminds me of a figure dear to me and certainly to you too, who share my feelings against corrupt customs, the figure of Jerome Savonarola, whose name I very unworthily bear. As a fervent admirer of this friar, who died a saint on the scaffold, I wanted to take him as my model when I became a tertiary, but alas, I am far from imitating him. Think about it and then write to me with your thoughts on the matter.”
– Letter from Pier Giorgio Frassati to his friend Antonio Villani, March 1923.
On August 4, after a Mass celebrated at 11:00 a.m. by Archbishop Anthony Fisher, OP—Archbishop of Sydney and promoter of the presence of Frassati’s relics at World Youth Day in Sydney in 2008—the relic returned to Turin.
This event, promoted by the Diocese of Rome, is an extraordinary pilgrimage closely linked to the upcoming canonization of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, which Pope Leo XIV will celebrate on September 7, together with that of Blessed Carlo Acutis.
