The Frassati Society is inspired by Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati who was born in Turin, Italy in 1901. He died at the young age of 24 in 1925 and was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1990.
Pier Giorgio was a
vibrant young outdoorsman who combined a deep love for Christ, a desire to serve the needy, and a mission to imbue society and politics with Christian ideals.(Go here or to EWTN for further information.)
As you can see from the pictures (one a photo, the other the official beatification picture) he even smoked a pipe. In many images of him now, the pipe has been airbrushed out, sacrificed on the altar of political correctness.
Dustin Katona, parish youth and Life Teen co-ordinator, with Pastor Fr Mike Steber and Deacon Ryan. I was here last year when Deacon Ryan (not yet a deacon) announced the setting up of the Frassati Society.
One of the reasons the Church is alive here is because of the number of large families. I have met serveral families of eight and six children, and young couples who are embarking on raising families, trusting in God's plan for them regarding the number of children they should welcome as gifts from the Lord. I have also met parents who have moved from rejecting to embracing the Church's teaching on family life and now rejoice in the blessing of many children. The six children in the above photo are siblings (Mom behind them) and there are two more who were running around somewhere. Deacon Ryan to the right and, on the extreme right, seminarian Brad.
Bishop Sample answering the questions from young people, e.g. 'Who is on the diocesan Pastoral Council?' 'What's your vision for the Frassati Society?' 'What chance of having a Catholic High School in the diocese?' 'Why is Father John Boyle here?' The Bishop spoke about his own experience of growing up as a young Catholic and his hope that young people would receive and bear joyful witness to the fullness of the Catholic faith.
How especially refreshing to have a bishop ready, willing and able to take questions from the young. This is as it should be. There are far too many bishops who hide behind their secretarial staff's skirts. Glad to see the topic of Catholic High schools being built is up for discussion. My own bishop prides himself on "having built new high schools" Well, he's also sold off OTHER high schools to pay for the pedo scandal as the properties of the old high schools were in desireable areas from the stand point of lucretive salablity. [And those schools in my day had a lot of working class and middle class children.] in the almost 40 years I've lived here the population of the county has double from 1.5 million to over 3 million and there is a TINY net gain in the number of available places at Catholic high schools, and yet our bishop thinks he's doing a great job in that respect. Feh. And now, it's just affordable for the upper-middle and wealthy classes, a year in Catholic high school bing in the the 9-10k range. Out of sight for many.
ReplyDeleteI hope Bishop Sample is able to do much better for his people!
I've helped establish a Frassati Society at my university. So far so good :)
ReplyDeleteBlessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, pray for us!
Many saints and popes used the pipe like Blessed Pius IX, St. Pius X and Pius XII. I believe our incumbent Holy Father smokes cigarettes too.
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