218. The Sacred Mounts of Oropa and Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati

Posted by Eva Ulian May 21, 2010

218. The Sacred Mounts of Oropa and Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati

The Sacred Mounts of Oropa and Crea in the province of Alessandria hosts lectures from across Europe, one of these being on the propagation of the Black Madonnas in Europe which has been the centre of research and debate among devotees for decades.

These Sanctuaries known as the “Sacred Mounts of Piedmonts and Lombardy”, are recognized by the UNESCO World Heritage List (July 2003). Both described as being ‘of exceptional and universal historical, artistic and scientific value’

However, for us pilgrims life was not rosy at all as it poured without respite throughout our sojourn. A home packed lunch was on the agenda after which most of us saw fit to take refuge in the various bars that dotted the climb upwards towards the sanctuaries.

Inside the older church hosting one of the black Madonnas, there was also a painting of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, who, a few miles from here was our next stop on the list.

Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, was the youth of the eight Beatitudes, as John Paul II said in proclaiming Pier Giorgio blessed on 20^th May 1990. He was born into an illustrious and wealthy Turin family; his father apart from being an ambassador and important politician at the turn of the 1900s, he was also the founder of the still eminent newspaper “La Stampa”. Pier Giorgio was born in 1901 and soon found that living the life of a bourgeois was not congenial to him.

He felt his place was among the workers, the poor and the disadvantaged, creating groups for youth to meet and has since been proclaimed the patron of the Catholic Association for Youths.

It was probably during one of his visits to a poor labourer’s home that he contracted poliomyelitis that brought him to his death within a week on July 4^th 1925.