The votes are in...Frassati wins.

Who can say that elections aren't stressful?  They certainly weren't for Pier Giorgio. 

"Political worries have prevented me from responding before now," is how he started a letter to his good friend Tonino after a big election in Italy.  Most of his worries were ones we are familiar with in our day.

Voter suppression:
"Our people were prevented from voting and so the Fascists won the majority in towns where a victory by the People’s Party was expected.  But by this method and worse the Fascists obtained a free consensus."

Voter intimidation:
"Even in Piedmont there has not been complete freedom of voting and in the centers where there was no intimidation and the people were able to vote fairly freely it was a reproof for the dominating party."

Election-related violence:
"We had to fight against every kind of violence...  The struggle was really rather difficult in Turin: without a newspaper, with betrayal among our own and with bitter hostility outside, we reported 4000 fewer votes than in ’21 when we were having political gatherings with maximum freedom."

Attacks against the Church: 
"The violence perpetrated against the Catholic clubs should teach many people what kind of religious spirit is molding the majority party."

Fascism had infiltrated even his Catholic club at the university. Not wanting to be exploited for fascist purposes, he refused to serve:
"I and all the members of the old administration decided not to accept any more offices no matter who was elected but it still turned out that Bertini was elected with 31 votes and I with 27, but we immediately submitted our resignations."

It's been a hard year for everyone and sometimes we can forget that we aren't the first ones to go through rough periods.  When you think that Pier Giorgio was writing about similar things nearly 100 years ago, it does provide some kind of perspective.  A little discouraging, I suppose, that things haven't changed much.  A little hopeful, maybe, to realize that outcomes don't have the finality they sometimes seem to have at the moment. 

Ultimately, Pier Giorgio's recourse was to pray and give everything to God.  "But we cannot do anything else but pray," he wrote when circumstances looked bleak, "that everything will turn out for the best.  I hope that God will listen to the prayers of all true Catholics."

Could there be a more relatable saint or blessed than Pier Giorgio?! If so, I sure haven't found one.  

Blessed Pier Giorgio, patriotic citizen of the nation, pray for us!

Verso l'alto! ///cmw