Today the Press Office of the Holy See released the presentation of the thirteen patrons of WYD 2023, written by the Patriarch of Lisbon, the Cardinal Manuel Clemente and inserted as a preface to a book published by Edizioni Paoline and Edizioni San Paolo. They are saints and blessed who have demonstrated how the life of Christ fills and saves young people of every age.
Among them two witnesses of theCatholic Action, Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati and Blessed Marcel Callo. Two young people who embodied the Gospel at the Catholic Action school of holiness.
Pier Giorgio in 1919 enrolled in the Rifle and actively participates in the Circolo Cesare Balbo. In July 1923, when the club of the Catholic Youth, Pier Giorgio is invited to be godfather of the flag. He experiences the national and international dimension of FUCI and GIAC by participating in conferences and congresses.
Marcel at the age of 15, he enrolled in the Christian working youth (Joc-movement of AC), convinced of the need to be an apostle among the workers.
The note from the Vatican Press Office presents the two figures:
Blessed Pietro Giorgio Frassati, who until his death in Turin in 1925 at the age of 24 moved everyone with the dynamism, joy and charity with which he lived the Gospel, both climbing the Alps and serving poor. St. John Paul II called him "the man of the eight beatitudes".
Blessed Marcel Callo, born in Rennes and died in the Mauthausen concentration camp in 1945. He was a scout and then Joc (Catholic Worker Youth) and when, at the age of 22, he was called to carry out compulsory work in Germany , left with the firm intention of continuing the apostolate in this very harsh condition. For this reason he was later taken to the concentration camp where he died.
