WASHINGTON — St. Pier Giorgio Frassati, canonized by Pope Leo XIV Sept. 7, now has a special connection to Washington.
A parish in the nation’s capital that has become a haven for young adult Catholics now has a chapel named for the young adult Italian Catholic who died a century ago and was known for his devotion to the Eucharist and his service to those in need.
The ornate, intimate St. Pier Giorgio Frassati Chapel at Immaculate Conception Parish is believed to be one of the first adoration chapels in the Americas named for the new saint.
It is next to the parish offices in a suite in an apartment building down the street from the church and rectory. The chapel is open many hours every day for private prayer, and for select hours of Eucharistic exposition during the week.
“Our new Frassati Chapel provides many hours each week of Eucharistic adoration in a safe, secure and sacred space for Catholics in the city. This chapel will transform our parish. It is already happening,” Father Charles Gallagher, the pastor, told the Catholic Standard, the news outlet of the Washington Archdiocese.
The chapel includes a striking portrait of the new saint provided by a priest friend of Father Gallager, Father David Nerbun, the pastor of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati Parish in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, which in 2023 became the first parish in the United States named for him.
A second-class relic of St. Pier Giorgio — a piece of leather from his clothing — is in the chapel for public veneration.
On Aug. 9, Washington Auxiliary Bishop Juan Esposito blessed the new parish offices and the chapel.
“Through our adoration of your Son present in the Eucharist, lead us to a closer union with the mystery of redemption,” the bishop said as he blessed the chapel.
At the blessing, Father Gallagher noted that St. John Paul II — who beatified Blessed Pier Giorgio in 1990 and named him as a special patron of World Youth Day — called him the “Man of the Beatitudes” because he “showed us what it means to live out the full spectrum of the Gospel. All Christians in the capital city can look to him as a friend and intercessor.”
After his blessing, Bishop Esposito commended Father Gallagher for the parish’s outreach to Catholic young adults in the city. “I have no doubt that the beautiful Frassati Chapel has already begun to bear fruit,” he said.
Erin Donn, a former parish missionary at Immaculate Conception who now serves in campus ministry at Elizabeth Seton High School in Bladensburg, Maryland, told the Catholic Standard, “I think for young adults, he’s just a really good model for balancing a life of charity and service in the midst of your ordinary, everyday life.”
She noted how special it is now to have an adoration chapel in the city, “to just be able to come and walk over, it’s just really a good gift to the neighborhood.”
Melissa Coughlin, an Immaculate Conception parishioner for nearly 20 years, echoed that point.
“Walking past the church every day was the pull I needed to come back to the faith,” said Coughlin, a physician-scientist who has been involved in the parish’s young adult outreach.
“Being able to come here and pray at any time will be a massive asset both to Immaculate Conception Parish and to the Catholic community in D.C,” Coughlin said. The chapel, in the spirit of St. Pier Giorgio, “truly allows people to take their faith to the heights,” she added, referencing one of the saint’s mottos, “Verso l’alto” (“To the heights”).
Father Gallagher went to Rome to attend St. Pier Giorgio Frassati’s canonization and joined other priests in concelebrating that Mass, and he visited sites in Italy associated with St. Pier Giorgio’s life.
The priest is convinced that Immaculate Conception’s chapel named for the new saint will transform his parish, that neighborhood and the city.
“Whenever a parish has real devotion to Eucharistic adoration and has an adoration chapel, God blesses that parish with special graces,” he said, noting that young adults are already praying in that chapel throughout the day and at night. “You feel there’s a real grace now, in that God is using this to set hearts on fire and to help people to really pray better and pray more.”
