Man of the Beatitudes

A Man of the Beatitudes: Pier Giorgio Frassati by Luciana Frassati, translated by Dinah Livingstone, 179 pages

Bl Pier Giorgio Frassati was born in Turin in 1901, the only son of the wealthy publisher of Italy's largest newspaper, La Stampa.  Despite the religious indifference of his parents - and the outspoken hostility of their social circle - Frassati developed into a young man of deep piety, secretly praying the rosary late at night, sneaking out of the house in the early morning for Eucharistic adoration.  Even more frightening to his parents were his forays into the slums, offering help (and, more vitally, compassion) to those in need.  These excursions became even more dangerous after the fascists rose to power, as both Frassatis, father and son, were outspoken foes of Mussolini and potential targets of blackshirt violence, but in the end it was a less dramatic threat that claimed him, as on one of his charitable visits he contracted a fatal case of polio, from which he died at the age of 24.  His canonization cause was begun less than a decade later, and he was beatified in 1990 by St John Paul II, who extolled him as a "man of the eight beatitudes."

It is natural to be suspicious of hagiography, and equally suspicious of biographies written by loved ones.  Yet, oddly, in the case of Man of the Beatitudes these difficulties cancel each other out to a significant extent, as Luciana was too close to her brother to reimagine him as some plaster saint, yet too impressed by him to pretend to understand him fully.  The result is a book that is, fittingly, both intimate and mysterious.