"Next year, during the Jubilee of Adolescents, I will canonize Blessed Carlo Acutis and in the Jubilee of Young People, Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati". Pope Francis made the official announcement at the end of this week’s general audience. Acutis will be declared a saint at a Mass on Sunday, April 27, 2025, the closing Mass for the Jubilee weekend dedicated to teens. Frassati, the young man from Turin, will be raised to the glory of the altars during the Mass on August 3, 2025, at the culmination of the much-anticipated Jubilee of Young People.
Last May 23, Pope Francis approved the decree for the canonization of Carlo Acutis, the young layman from Lombardy in northern Italy, famed for his love of the Eucharist and his passion for technology, who has been defined by many as “an influencer of holiness”. Acutis was born in 1991 and died in 2006 of fulminant leukemia, and even during his lifetime was famed for his sanctity. He was beatified by Pope Francis on October 10, 2020, in Assisi where he is buried.
Piergiorgio Frassati was born in 1901, and died at just 24 years old. He was a student from Turin, also in northern Italy, a Dominican tertiary and was very active in the Catholic Action movement, in Fuci (the Italian Catholic students’ organization) and with the Vincentians. He is one of the best known and best loved blesseds among young Catholics, and is considered one of the Italian “social” saints, because of his life completely dedicated to the most needy. He came from a wealthy family, the son of Alfredo Frassati, who was the editor of La Stampa, Turin’s famous newspaper, and his short life was devoted to prayer and helping the vulnerable. He is also famed as the “saint of the peaks”, because he loved climbing mountains, accompanying his friends to the highest peaks, so as to see the sky better. He would end his many letters to friends with the phrase “Duc in Altum” (Put out into the deep) and was known as the “boy of the eight beatitudes”. He was beatified by Saint John Paul II in 1990.
Canonizations have always played an important role in the history of Holy Years. Among others, were the canonization of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, by Pope Francis on September 4, 2016, during the Jubilee of Mercy, Sister Faustina Kowalska canonized by Pope John Paul II in the Great Jubilee of 2000, and Saint Maria Goretti, elevated to the glory of the altars in the Jubilee of 1950 by Pope Pius XII.
The Jubilee of 2025 will thus proclaim to the universal Church and to the world the stories of holiness of two young people, who in their lives were authentic witnesses of the “Hope that does not disappoint”.