As Lara Marlowe wrote this week, Gena Heraty’s release gives us hope in a world where “altruism, self-abnegation and solidarity are desperately needed”. The Irish lay missionary was held captive, along with seven others, including a three-year-old child, for three weeks.
Without in any way detracting from the inspirational nature of Heraty’s 32 years in Haiti working with people with intellectual and physical challenges, we are less surprised when it is a woman who exemplifies selflessness and care.
Why is that? We all know kind, caring, selfless men. Yet, there are still strong social scripts that caring is primarily a woman’s thing.
Over the past 50 years competing visions of masculinity have ricocheted from the 1980s New Man – a sensitive drip – to the misogynistic male influencers of the manosphere, who tout the belief that women enjoy being dominated, including by being choked during porn-influenced sex. It’s unsurprising that young men in particular are struggling, given that masculinity is often coupled with the word “toxic”.
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This weekend two young men who represent an entirely different vision of masculinity are being canonised by Pope Leo in Rome.
Carlo Acutis, the first millennial saint, who would be only 34 today if he had lived, and Pier Giorgio Frassati, who died aged 24 in 1925, are the first saints to be canonised by Pope Leo XIV.
A cynic might see it as the Catholic Church’s attempt to capitalise on rising interest in religion by young men in recent times. In fairness, Frassati was declared a Blessed (one of the stages before canonisation) by Pope John Paul II in 1990.
Since then his cause has not exactly been fast-tracked, given that demand for his canonisation began shortly after his funeral in 1925. It was attended by throngs of Turin’s poor and sick whom he had helped, who were already acclaiming him as a saint. This astonished his parents, who had no idea of the extent of his outreach.
The canonisation process moved much more swiftly for Acutis, given that he died in 2006, aged 15. However, it is unsurprising that his cause would proceed rapidly, given the level of interest in this self-taught computer geek, who designed websites showcasing faith in the Eucharist, which was at the centre of his own life.
When his relics went on display for veneration in Ireland recently, they attracted crowds. His youth and the fact that he was born in 1991 intrigue people.
He is someone who read Superman comics, swapped Pokémon cards, played Super Mario on a Nintendo 64, and wore jeans and polo shirts. He is fascinating in his very ordinariness – and in how this ordinary life coexisted with a profound spirituality.
[ Pope Leo’s first 100 days: ‘He is returning to what was normality before’Opens in new window ]
There are many parallels between Frassati and Acutis, including their early deaths: Acutis from leukaemia and Frassati from polio. They both came from wealthy Italian backgrounds but had no interest in material things, except to give them away to people less well off.
Another parallel is that neither came from particularly religious families.
Frassati’s father was the owner and editor of La Stampa, a prominent newspaper. His father was an anti-fascist senator who considered himself an agnostic, while his mother was a well-known artist who had a conventional but not particularly deep faith.
Frassati’s parents’ marriage was not happy. In fact, it may have been the discovery after his death that their son was revered for his faith and practical kindness that saved them from separating.
Acutis seems to have been greatly influenced as a very small child by the faith of his Polish nanny, Beata. She was the first to take him to Mass and to say the rosary together. She planted the seeds of his spirituality. When this led to Acutis asking his mother questions about faith that flummoxed her, finding answers for him led to her own reversion to committed Catholicism. He was the one dragging his parents to faith, not the other way around.
Although born 90 years earlier, it is still easy to relate to Frassati. He was a practical joker, a mountaineer, a skier. One iconic photo shows him at the top of a mountain, pipe clenched between his teeth.
He had close male and female friends to whom he gave the playful name, I Tipi Loschi, variously translated as “the shady characters” or “the usual suspects”.
Beginning at age four, when he infuriated his father by giving away his shoes and socks, Frassati gave everything he had to the poor. He took part in anti-fascist demonstrations. His life revolved around the Eucharist and Catholic social teaching, reading and rereading Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII’s famous encyclical.
Although it is accidental that these are Pope Leo XIV’s first canonisations, as Pope Francis had planned separate ceremonies before death intervened, there is something appropriate about it.
All three – Acutis, Frassati and Pope Leo – model a kind of masculinity that is kind yet strong, centred on service of others. In a world where the internet often resembles a festering pool of corrosive slop and influencers’ versions of masculinity are sometimes equally vile, these men show that it’s not only women who can bring light and hope.
