The remains of the exemplar for students and youth will be at St. Mary’s Cathedral during World Youth Day.
Posted: 07.08.08
CNS | DANIEL MUNOZ, REUTERS
Catholics pray in front of the coffin of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati at St. Benedict’s Church in Sydney, Australia, July 2. The body of Blessed Pier Giorgio, who died in 1925, was placed in a closed zinc-lined coffin and arrived in Sydney from Turin, Italy, for World Youth Day.
SYDNEY, Australia | The body of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati arrived in Sydney for World Youth Day 2008, marking the first time it has left Turin, Italy, since his 1925 death.
The charismatic Blessed Pier Giorgio is revered for his social activism, sports–loving way, sense of humor and generous spirit.
“Pier Giorgio loved sport, horse riding, mountain climbing and practical jokes,” Auxiliary Bishop Anthony Fisher, World Youth Day coordinator, told parishioners at St. Benedict Church in Sydney, where the body, enclosed in a zinc–lined coffin, was received July 2.
Born into a wealthy and influential but unreligious family, Blessed Pier Giorgio joined the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in 1918 at age 17, committing his spare time to the sick and needy. A passionate social activist, he joined student organizations, opposed fascism and established a daily newspaper.
His charitable acts included donating the money he received for high school graduation to an elderly woman evicted from her apartment and supporting a sick widow’s three children. In 1925 the young man was afflicted with an acute attack of polio, which doctors speculated he caught from the sick that he tended. He died within five days at the age of 24.
The body will remain at St. Benedict Church until July 10. Then it will be moved to St. Mary’s Cathedral and become a focal point of the World Youth Day 2008 pilgrimage to the historic landmark.
An evening Mass at St. Benedict Church will mark Blessed Pier Giorgio’s feast day, July 4; the Mass will be celebrated by Sydney Cardinal George Pell and Bishop Fisher.
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