Update: The Vatican's jubilee office on Tuesday, July 8, removed posts on its website and social media pages referring to plans to expose Frassati's relics as described below. However, the Diocese of Rome confirmed on July 22 that Frassati's incorrupt body will be in Rome for veneration.
The coffin holding the incorrupt body of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati will be in Rome for veneration during the Jubilee of Youth July 26 through Aug. 4.
According to the Diocese of Rome, the coffin will be transferred from the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin, in the Italian region of Piedmont, to the Basilica of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva in Rome.
The official opening of the veneration took place on July 26 with a Mass celebrated by Cardinal Vicar Baldo Reina, who also imparted a blessing to the volunteers working during the Jubilee.
Frassati, originally scheduled to be canonized on Aug. 3 during the Jubilee of Youth, will now be declared a saint by Pope Leo XIV on Sunday, Sept. 7, together with Blessed Carlo Acutis.
Frassati’s remains will be displayed in the Basilica of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva in Rome until Aug. 4 so that they can be venerated by young people attending jubilee events July 28 through Aug. 3, when Pope Leo will celebrate the youth jubilee’s closing Mass at the Tor Vergata University campus on the southeastern outskirts of Rome.
The relic will return to Turin after a Mass celebrated by Archbishop of Sydney Anthony Fisher on Aug. 4 at 11 a.m. concludes.
The young blessed’s relics were also present at World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia, in 2008, at the request of Cardinal George Pell.
Frassati was born to a prominent family in Turin in 1901. He balanced a deep life of faith with active engagement in politics and service to the poor. He joined the Dominican Third Order, climbed Alpine peaks, and distributed food and medicine to the needy in the poorest parts of Turin.
On the weekend of July 4, towns in northern Italy marked 100 years since Pier Giorgio Frassati’s death on July 4, 1925, from polio.
When Frassati’s coffin was opened during his beatification process in 1981, his body was found to be incorrupt, or preserved from the natural process of decay after death. According to Catholic tradition, incorruptible saints give witness to the truth of the resurrection of the body and the life that is to come.
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This article was originally published on CNA.
Hannah Brockhaus is Catholic News Agency's senior Rome correspondent. She grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and has a degree in English from Truman State University in Missouri.
