Inside the Cappella della Sacra Sindone or the Chapel of the Shroud of Turin in Italy is a triple treat for all Catholic pilgrims: the Shroud of Turin believed to be the wrapping cloth that contains Jesus Christ’s image; the remains of the head of Jesus’ cousin Saint John the Baptist served on a silver platter before King Herod at the request of the king’s stepdaughter Salome; and the tomb of one of the saints newly canonized by Pope Leo XIV: Pier Giorgio Frassati.

Canonized alongside the “Millennial saint” Carlo Acutis last 7 September in Rome, Frassati was an Italian Catholic activist and member of the Third Order of Saint Dominic or Lay Dominicans. 

Born on 6 April 1901 to an agnostic father who ran a liberal paper and a painter mother, Pier Giorgio, early in his childhood, demonstrated saintly qualities, such as giving the very shoes he was wearing when a beggar boy and his mother came knocking at their door.

Although gifted with good looks like Acutis, Frassati was not a genius like the “patron saint of the internet.” Pier Giorgio was an average student and regularly failed in exams, which was why he landed in a Jesuit school.

A mountaineer, swimmer and athlete, Frassati dedicated most of his life helping address inequalities as an activist by opposing fascism and Benito Mussolini’s regime. As he once said: “Charity is not enough; we need social reform.”

He was once arrested while protesting alongside the 1921 Young Catholic Workers Congress in Rome. He was also involved in student groups such as Catholic Action and the Apostleship of Prayer. He died of polio in 1925 — only at the age of 24.

In May 1990, Pope John Paul II beatified Frassati, calling him “Man of the Eight Beatitudes.”

Frassati’s body was later discovered to be incorrupt, and was then on display at the Vatican last July to August for public veneration.