“We live in an era of sad passions. I always strike me sadness, especially in the youngest, and even more it affects me that there are few generally joyful people. Then I would like Pier Giorgio Frassati to be a model of joy, serenity and realism for young people, that is, of the ability to grasp the whole of life without neglecting anything ».
It is the reflection of the archbishop of Turin, the cardinal Roberto Repoleat the inauguration, on Saturday morning, of “Towards the other”, The new multimedia exhibition space dedicated to Pier Giorgio Frassati and set up in the former rectory of the Turin church of Santa Maria di Piazza.
Frassati, who died in Turin a hundred years ago, on July 4, 1925, will be canonized by Pope Leone XIV next September 7 in St. Peter’s Square together with Carlo Acutis.
Active in the rifle and in the Catholic action, Frassati lived Christian charity as a social and political action: anti -fascist, promoted university reforms, supported an alliance between popular and socialists as a dam to the regime and denounced the squadristic violence. In 1923 he resigned from the Fucino club for protest against the tribute of the Catholics to Mussolini. He said: “Fascism exercises violence and the people are oppressed”. In him, spirituality was intertwined with the commitment to the most fragile, with the mountain as a symbol of elevation “upwards”.
Made by Mediacor, Communication society that has already edited several museum installations for the ecclesial world, such as the cultural center “Cultures and Mission” of the missionaries of the consolement in Turin, the “Antonius” route of the conventual friars in Padua and the rearrangement of the Don Bosco Museum in Chieri, with the support of the CRT Foundation, of the Italian Episcopal Conference and of the diocesan work Pier Giorgio Frassati, The exhibition offers an emotional and immersive path, accessible to everyone, which tells the life and spiritual experience of Pier Giorgio Frassati Through the use of advanced multimedia technologies, including bright projections, evocative sounds and audio with the reading of letters by EA Pier Giorgio, interactive panels and applications that guide visitors in a biographical journey, exploring the historical context in which Frassati has lived, the significant places of his life: Turin, its suburbs, the European cities he visited, the Pollone campaign and, in particular, the mountain, symbol of his research “upwards”.
“I would like young people,” said Respole in his intervention, “They can learn from Pier Giorgio La Grattità, in an era in which it seems that the only law of everything is utilitarianism. But with utilitarianism it would not only exist the Church, but there would not even exist society and we forget it too often “, the cardinal warned, stressing that” it is the free of all “and that” there is a need to find a sense of non -elitist society because we are all there or there is nobody “. Frassati, therefore, as a model “of a boy full of vitality and joy but also socially committed, politically, and this too I think it is A decisive message in a time like today, in our western democracies that are really at risk».
The meaning of the exhibition itinerary was illustrated by Alberto Chiara, Journalist and writer, already chief editor of Christian family, In addition to tracing a portrait of Frassati, he explained the reasons for his topicality: «It is a figure that we feel contemporary because – moved by a faith as deep as it is authentic – he has been able to give modern answers to issues that scratch today as yesterday: Relationships between people, the relationship with the environment, the poor, politics, peace. A credible believer, Pier Giorgio, therefore current. His inheritance accompanies us synthesized in some lapidary affirmation. Two above all: living, do not live; upward”.
Alberto Chiara also explained why the exhibition was set up in the church of Santa Maria della Piazza: «Here Pier Giorgio came, often at night, to feed his love for God, stopping even for hours in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. A gym of silence to then be able to use right words at the right time. On the knees, stopped, at the head in chino, to then be able to travel the streets of the world with head held high. The closed and penumbra of a church to build a church outgoing, taking concepts dear to Pope Francis. That’s why “he concluded,”We want to remember Pier Giorgio Frassati, here, in a historical space, very important for him and for the city, a completely transformed space keeping his ancient soul intact».
The President of the Region were also present at the inauguration Alberto Ciriowho underlined how “to be here gives a different meaning to my day, qualifies everything else”, and the mayor Stefano Lo Russo Which invited everyone, taking an example from Frassati, to become “infected by goodness and eliminate the contagion of indifference, of the silences of the speech”.
