The Dominican friars and Columbus St. Patrick Church celebrated the recent canonizations of two saints who were members of their order.
The parish, which has been under the care of the Dominicans since 1885, commemorated the holy lives of St. Pier Giorgio Frassatti and St. Bartolo Longo with a holy hour for young adults hosted by the Columbus Frassati Society on Thursday, Oct. 23, followed by Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and Solemn Vespers and Benediction led by Bishop Earl Fernandes with a dinner afterward on Friday, Oct. 24, a presentation on the life of Longo by Father Gabriel Torretta, OP on Saturday, Oct. 25, and homilies by Father Torretta at weekend Masses on Oct. 25-26.
Frassati was canonized along with St. Carlo Acutis on Sunday, Sept. 7 at the Vatican by Pope Leo XIV. Longo was made a saint on Sunday, Oct. 19 by the Holy Father along with six others.
Frassati’s story is more widely known. The young Italian died at age 24 in 1925. Frassati, a lay member of the Third Order of Dominicans, loved the outdoors and was called by Pope St. John Paul II a Man of the Beatitudes because of his tireless work for the poor, suffering and those in need of mercy.
Longo’s canonization was fitting for October during the Month of the Rosary because of his great devotion to the Marian prayer given to St. Dominic, the founder of the order. Pope St. John Paul II, who beatified Longo in 1980, called him the “Apostle of the Rosary” and attributed the creation of the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary in 2002 to Longo’s writings.
There was a period when Longo, who lived from 1841 to 1926 in southern Italy, was anything but saintly. In fact, as a young man in his 20s after he left his devout Catholic home for law school at the University of Naples, he was influenced by a rebellion against the Church at the time and began to immerse himself in the occult, becoming a “satanist” priest who promised his soul to a demon while attempting to lead faithful Catholics away from the Church.
With the help of a Dominican priest, Longo returned to the Church, became a lay Dominican and dedicated the rest of his life to helping others and promoting devotion to the rosary. He was responsible for the construction of the Basilica of the Most Holy Rosary in Pompeii, where many miracles have occurred.
Thousands visit the basilica every year to pray and ask for the intercession of this holy man.
“We see in Bartolo what it really practically means to be in your age but not of your age, to be in the world, but not of the world, and that this is, in fact, nothing less than the actual call of holiness itself,” Father Torretta said in his Saturday presentation.
Frassati’s feast day is July 4 and Longo’s is Oct. 5.
