On Wednesday morning, at the end of the General Audience, the Pope announced the canonization of two young Italian laypeople in 2025: Carlo Acutis for the Jubilee of Children and Adolescents, and Pier Giorgio Frassati for the Jubilee of Youth.
Photo: Vatican news/ Vatican media
Newsroom (20/11/2024 15:05, Gaudium Press) On this Universal Day of the Rights of the Child established by the UN, Pope Francis announced that a first meeting dedicated to children’s rights would occur at the Vatican on February 3. Another piece of news that none expected was the announcement of the dates for the canonization of two Italian Blesseds.
“I would like to say that next year, at the Jubilee for Adolescents (April 25-27), I will canonize Blessed Carlo Acutis, and at the Jubilee for Youth (July 28-August 3), next year, I will canonize Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati,” Francis said unexpectedly, provoking the joy and applause of the faithful in St. Peter’s Square who had gathered to hear his Wednesday catechesis.
Francis had approved the canonization of Carlo Acutis by decree on May 23, with only one date remaining. Despite the pandemic and strict health measures, pilgrims came from all over the world to attend the beatification Mass on October 10, 2020, in Assisi, where Acutis, who died in 2006 of devastating leukemia, rests according to his wishes. Since then, thousands of young people have flocked to San Francisco to pay homage to his remains; there were 120,000 in 2023. Several of his relics are offered for veneration by the faithful, notably in South Korea, in Seoul, where the next World Youth Day will be held.
Described by many as “an influencer of holiness”, Carlo Acutis paved the way for evangelization on the Internet from a very young age. Using his creativity, Acutis created websites in his spare time, for example for his parish in Milan. His canonization was made possible after a miracle. In July 2022, a woman from Costa Rica prayed for Acutis’ intercession in Assisi for the healing of her daughter who was dying as a result of an accident. On the same day, the young girl started breathing again, an unexpected recovery.
Pier Giorgio Frassati also continues to inspire thousands of young Christians. Declared patron of WYD Lisbon (2023), Pope Francis will preside at his canonization Mass a century after his death.
Born in 1901, Pier Giorgio Frassati, a young student from Turin, a member of the Dominican Third Order, the Vincentians and Catholic Action, is one of the best-known Blesseds among the new generations of Catholics in Italy.
Coming from a wealthy family of intellectuals, “his vocation as a lay Christian was realized through his multiple associative and political commitments, in a society in full ferment, indifferent and even hostile to the Church,” said St. John Paul II during his beatification in May 1990. He was also a good sportsman: “a mountaineer… sagacious”. The young man’s adherence to the Gospel translates into ardent charity and loving attention to the poor and needy. It was during one of his visits to the poor that he contracted polio, from which he died in July 1925.
The two young Blesseds will therefore be elevated to the honors of the altars during the Jubilee of Hope, a hope that Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati preached, not with words, but with their lives.
With information from Vatican news
Compiled by Dominic Joseph
