HOMILY FOR MASS OF THE MEMORIAL OF ST JOHN VIANNEY – IN THE COMPANY OF ST CATHERINE OF SIENA, BLD FRA ANGELICO AND BLD PIER GIORGIO FRASSATI – YOUTH PILGRIMAGE FOR THE JUBILEE OF HOPE
BASILICA OF SANTA MARIA SOPRA MINERVA, ROME, 4 AUGUST 2025
Male and female, tall and short, young and old, clerical and lay, alive or dead at the moment: sainthood comes in many different kinds. In the history of our faith, the path to heroic virtue is not one-size-fits-all.
Take John Vianney, whose memorial the Church celebrates today. He was a humble parish priest in the French village of Ars. Through tireless preaching and long hours in the confessional he renewed countless souls. His was a holiness forged over many years of struggle in his vocation. His pastoral commitment, profound humility and deep prayer made him a model for pastors by the time of his death in 1859, aged 73.
Very different was St Catherine of Siena, a lay woman who only lived to 33. She advised princes, prelates and people; converted warlords, popes and prisoners; served the sick and needy; and produced influential spiritual writings. But the Western schism broke her heart and she spent her last energies trying to reconcile and reform, praying in old St Peter’s, and crawling to Mass until her death here in 1380. Now she is recognised as co-patron of Italy and of Europe, and a doctor of the Church—not bad for a girl only your age but with far less education and in a world where woman had fewer options!
A third saint again was Piergiorgio Frassati. With his niece Wanda, I was privileged to visit his home in the mountains and his tomb in Turin, and to hear from those who treasured his memory as a friend of youth and the poor. When his body came to Sydney for the World Youth Day in 2008, we had a pathway of prayer installed in our cathedral for young people to walk with him as they venerated his relics. Today his body is again with us for Mass as we look forward to his canonisation next month. When St John Paul II beatified him in 1990, he called Piergiorgio “the man of the century, the man of today, the man who loved much, the man of the beatitudes.” Full of energy, of fun, of God, he had a gift for sharing these with others. As a young Catholic man, he naturally considered a priestly or religious vocation, and was attracted to the Dominicans as evangelisers. But he discerned that his path to holiness would be as a layman in the world and so he joined the lay Dominicans for spiritual and intellectual formation, and the St Vincent de Paul Society to express his faith in service to the poor.
As the world sees it, his dying at 24 was a tragic waste, like that of Carlo Acutis with whom he will be canonised, aged only 15. Yet a hundred years later, we celebrate Piergiorgio’s witness long after forgetting many who lived three times longer than he.
Yesterday at Tor Vergata, Pope Leo re-proposed Piergiorgio as an inspiration for young people, as Popes John Paul, Benedict and Francis had done before him.[1] Jesus stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, he said, whether for yourselves or for society. And to do that you need Christ. To remain in His friendship, he recommended following Piergiorgio in Eucharistic Adoration and Communion, frequent Confession, and generous charity. “Learn from him to aspire to great things, to holiness,” to the heights l’alto verso, “wherever you are. Do not settle for less: God is waiting to transform your life!” the Holy Father said.
Piergiorgio balanced faith and fun, indeed demonstrated that faith IS fun. Mountain climbing or skiing, study or socialising, all could be apostolate. He persuaded his mates to agree that, if he beat them at snooker or some athletic challenge, they would come to Mass with him. His good looks and warm personality were magnets, showing that the young can be holy and the holy can be fun!
Piergiorgio famously said, “To live without faith is not living, but merely existing.” He lived with faith; he also lived out his faith. He gave selflessly. Even as a child he would give his shoes to kids on the street. As an adolescent he gave a beggar his overcoat one winter, and when his father complained he explained simply, “But Papa, it was cold”. At university he gave all his money to those in the slums, even his bus fares and graduation fund. When asked by friends why he rode third class on the trains, he replied with a smile, “Because there’s no fourth class.” And so, when the whole city came out for his funeral, it was the poor and sick who formed his guard of honour.
G.K. Chesterton said the Catholic Church is the most democratic organisation because it extends the franchise widest of all. It includes men and women, infants and elderly, rich and poor, of every people and nation—all have their sway in the Church. More democratic still, the Church gives the vote even to the dead, treasuring her saints and traditions, allowing ages past to have their say as well. Modernity restricts the franchise to the movers and shakers of the moment; and today’s influencers quickly become yesterday’s men or women. But to profess that we believe in the Holy Catholic Church is to acknowledge the faithful of every time and place, who proclaimed the Gospel each in their own way, whether as old priests like Jean Vianney and myself, or as young people like Catherine, Piergiorgio and yourselves.
Still, it’s a quirky thing, that Catholics so honour their dead and the remains of the dead. I was asked once by a radio host “What’s this thing with Catholics and bones?” I explained that the relics of saints are sacramentals: sites where God imparts graces of healing and strength, through the intercession of the faithful one whose relics they are. This was obvious to our ancestors, who got death better than we do. Yet even post-moderns reverence their dead with funerals, flowers and graves, groping for some continuing connection. We might not be as close to the dead as were our ancestors, yet still we crave that next phrase of our Creed: “the communion of saints”.
There’s another reason for venerating relics. In an era when some discount the body as if ‘the real me’ is some ghostly mind or self, while others obsess about bodily perfection and end up in self-loathing; when some bodies are damaged by warfare or violence, abortion, drugs or starvation, while others are degraded by pornography, prostitution or medical mutilation; when some speak of the afterlife as becoming ghosts or angels—in such an age, we need to recover a due reverence for our corporeal life and the unity of body and soul. As good Dominicans Catherine, Angelico and Piergiorgio cry to us from their tombs today: love creation as you love the Creator, treasure the beautiful, the bodily and the sacramental, look forward to your resurrection in the world to come.
Through “this Catholic thing with bones” we honour the person who was and look forward to the person who will be again—but now purified, restored, glorified. When Piergiorgio’s mortal remains were transferred from Pollone cemetery to Turin Cathedral, they were found to be incorrupt after sixty years. In miraculously preserving his body for so long, God was saying something powerful about the purity of this incorruptible man, about the significance of life in the flesh, and about the promise of resurrection to us all. Holy relics, then, are not just a quirky Catholic thing: they are a quirky God thing! In reverencing the remains of our loved ones and especially the saints, we proclaim our faith in the Holy Catholic Church and the Communion of Saints, but also in the Resurrection of the Body, and Life Everlasting!
With such an eschatological horizon, we can dare to start with the little we are and have, like those in today’s Gospel, trusting that God’s grace will multiply our efforts and help a multitude of others (Mt 14:13-21). Piergiorgio’s life was another witness to God’s power in multiplying simple acts of faith, hope and charity a hundredfold.
Jean-Marie Vianney, patron saint of parish priests, pray the Church receives the vocations we need.
Catherine of Siena, doctor of the Church, give us your zeal for Christ and His people.
Piergiorgio Frassati, witness to justice and charity, friend of youth and the poor, inspire us to be people of the beatitudes.
[1] Pope Leo XIV, Homily for Mass for the Jubilee for Youth, Tor Vergata (3 August 2025).
St John Paul II, Homily for the Mass of Beatification of Pier Giorgio Frassati (20 May 1990); Address to the Jubilee for Athletes (12 April 1984); Address at Orosa and Address at Pollone (16 July 1989); Address to the Youth of Rome (5 April 2001).
Pope Benedict XVI, Sacramentum caritatis: Post-Synodal Exhortation on Charity (22 February 2007), 94; Audiences (5 July 2006; 4 July 2007; 27 July 2008; 8 July 2009); Message for World Youth Day (15 March 2010); Message to the Youth of Turin (2 May 2010); Message to Youth of San Marino (19 June 2011); Address to the Italian Olympic Committee (17 December 2012).
Pope Francis, Christus Vivit: Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation to Young People (25 March 2019), 60; Messages for World Youth Day (21 January 2014; 15 August 2015); Homily for Vespers with University Students of Rome (30 November 2013); Homily for Mass for the Solemnity of Christ the King (22 November 2020).
INTRODUCTION TO MASS OF THE MEMORIAL OF ST JOHN VIANNEY IN THE COMPANY OF ST CATHERINE OF SIENA, BLD FRA ANGELICO AND BLD PIER GIORGIO FRASSATI
YOUTH PILGRIMAGE FOR THE JUBILEE OF HOPE, BASILICA OF SANTA MARIA SOPRA MINERVA, 04.08.25
Benvenuti, amici, nella Basilica di Santa Maria sopra Minerva per questa Celebrazione Eucaristica. Sono Anthony Fisher, Arcivescovo di Sydney, Australia, e mi trovo qui con settanta giovani pellegrini in occasione del Giubileo della Gioventù.
Oggi la Chiesa celebra la memoria di San Giovanni Maria Vianney, patrono dei parroci. Accanto a noi riposano le spoglie mortali della grande Dottore della Chiesa, Santa Caterina da Siena, e del beato Fra Angelico, patrono degli artisti.
Ma in modo ancora più speciale, oggi siamo accompagnati dal corpo del nostro futuro Santo, Pier Giorgio Frassati, patrono della gioventù. Il suo corpo fu portato a Sydney in occasione della Giornata Mondiale della Gioventù del due mila otto, e per questo è un amico e patrono particolarmente caro ai giovani cattolici di Sydney. Chiedo scusa a lui e a tutti gli italofoni presenti oggi: la nostra Messa sarà celebrata in inglese!
Welcome, young pilgrims of the world, to the Basilica of Sta Maria sopra Minerva. Built over the ruins of a temple dedicated to the ancient goddess Isis-Minerva, it is the only surviving gothic church in Rome and of great historic and artistic importance. The church and adjoining Dominican priory served as the College of St Thomas that evolved into the Angelicum University, where Pope John Paul II and Pope Leo XIV both studied, and so the Carafa Chapel boasts Lippi’s great frescoes in honour of Aquinas. For some centuries it also housed the offices of the Roman Inquisition or ‘Holy Office’, and it was here that Galileo was tried.
Here, too, St Catherine of Siena, the first woman doctor of the Church, lived her last months, died and is buried under the high altar. Nearby is the tomb of Blessed Fra Angelico, patron of artists, as well as the Risen Christ sculpture by his admirer Michelangelo. Several popes are buried here too.[i]
So we have Mass today near some Christian heroes. The feast day is that of St John Vianney, the patron saint of parish priests. And we are celebrating Mass alongside the body of the soon-to-be sainted Piergiorgio Frassati. His body came to Sydney Australia for World Youth Day in 2008, and to Rome to be with us for this unforgettable Jubilee for Youth 2025. To offer Mass again beside his casket is a real privilege, and I welcome his niece Wanda Gawronska, who enabled her sainted uncle to travel and took his story to the youth of the world.
I greet people of many nations joining us in the afterglow of the Jubilee for Youth. I encourage the young people to ask Pier Giorgio to intercede for wisdom about your calling, for courage to embrace it, and for the holy joy of flourishing in that vocation in the years ahead. Surrounded by a great company of saints, we first repent of the times we’ve failed to live as saints for our times…
[i] Leo X 1521, Clement VII 1534, Paul IV 1555, Urban VII 1590.