He wasn’t content with random acts of kindness. He wanted gestures that produced greater good. Frassati was a student who chose to “serve Christ among the miners,” a young man who lived politics as a form of civic passion, “always in service of the common good, starting with the least.” He built the kind of friendship that could be the foundation of peace.

Zardi describes the lead-up to the canonization as a time to “train the heart”: pilgrimages along the “Frassati Trails”, a new museum space in Turin, and the publication of the text, Di santa ragione.

“We’ve kept sharing his story with young people—and rediscovering it ourselves in the process.”

The saint of Mondays

To Agnese Palmucci, youth leader of Catholic Action in Rome, Frassati is “a brother—not a distant saint. A real, normal young man who shows us what everyday holiness looks like.”

“We call ourselves the ‘Monday people,’” she explains. “Because Sunday should carry on into every day and he’s the saint of Mondays, the one who shows us how to sanctify ordinary life.”

“What’s beautiful about him,” she adds, “is how clearly we can see the source of everything he did. Without that source, even our activism becomes empty.” His friendship, she says, “was incarnate. His charity was hidden.” At his funeral, it was the poor who told his parents who he truly was.

“He was outraged by injustice. He never bowed to fascism. But he always kept his gaze ‘toward the heights.’ He challenges us still—not a saint for a niche, but a real example that makes you say: I want to be like that too.”

In Rome, his memory is alive through traveling exhibitions in parishes and reading groups centered on his letters. “You can see in him that prayer means bowing toward God and toward your brother, because he and I are equal—brothers.”

From the mountains to the digital world

From Buenos Aires, Claudia Carbajal, president of Catholic Action Argentina, highlights a key part of Frassati’s legacy: “He shows us that friendship rooted in Christ is a shared path to holiness.”

For the canonization, Argentinian young people are preparing a week of testimonies and a podcast to celebrate the event.

From Spain, Daniel Díaz Rincón Muelas, Catholic Action youth leader, shares: “We’re overjoyed. It’s a privilege to see a Catholic Action youth member raised to the altars of sainthood. His message is clear: be a Christian at the heart of university life. Proclaim your faith boldly—even in hostile environments. Support youth communities, build shared awareness, engage in the world around you—not just through studies or personal commitments.”

Fernando Viejo, standing beside him, adds: “Frassati is the model of a young Catholic: a student, a lover of the mountains, passionate about the Eucharist, close to the poor. What struck me most is that at his funeral, it was the poor of Turin who were there.”

Together with the man of the Eight Beatitudes

On September 6 in Rome, Catholic Action Italy is organizing the conference “Within Life, Within History: The Holiness of Pier Giorgio Frassati” at the San Pius X Hall. It is focused on three themes: friendship, peace, and social justice.

That evening, a prayer vigil is to be held at Santa Maria in Traspontina, presided over by Bishop Claudio Giuliodori. The Gospel of the Beatitudes will be proclaimed—fitting, as Pope John Paul II, when he was Archbishop of Krakow, once called Frassati “the man of the eight Beatitudes.”

Afterward, there will be Eucharistic Adoration, a moment of intimate silence before Christ, and intercessions for youth, the poor, and peace.

“We’ll be there before Jesus just like Pier Giorgio was,” says Zardi. “Listening to his words on peace and intimacy with the Lord.”

Peace that doesn’t let you rest

“I am poor like all the poor,” Frassati once said.

This was his identity: one that unsettles and breaks down social, cultural, and political barriers. “Humanity was his concern,” wrote his sister, Luciana.

His message wasn’t lofty rhetoric—it was a call to relationship: to give others what they’re entitled to by birthright, because they are brothers, because they are children. Not blind optimism, but a joy that moves through suffering.

On the T-shirts of young Romans is printed one of his quotes: “You ask me if I’m happy? How could I not be?” It is not a sentiment of naivety, but a daily “yes” immersed in grace.

“Every day that passes I am more convinced of how ugly the world is, how much misery there is,” Frassati wrote. “But faith speaks to me with a sure voice: You alone can do nothing, but if God is the center of all your actions, you will reach the goal.”

This is Frassati’s vision of hope. This is his peace: bowing before God and toward others. Turning prayer into life, and politics into political charity.

And so, the radical question remains:

What hidden “yes” are we willing to say—so that hope becomes flesh, and peace becomes more than just a word?