Many U.S. pilgrims had planned travel around the original Aug. 3 date, only to learn they will now miss the canonization entirely.

When the April 21 death of Pope Francis upended plans for Blessed Carlo Acutis’ canonization, which had originally been scheduled for April 27, Catholics around the world anxiously awaited the announcement of Acutis’ new canonization date.

Finally, following a meeting between Pope Leo and the cardinals on June 13, the Vatican announced Acutis would be canonized Sept. 7 — alongside a fellow young Italian, Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, who had originally been scheduled for canonization on Aug. 3.

But largely lost amid the joyous news of Acutis’ and Frassati’s canonizations was the fact that the shifting of Frassati’s canonization date upended travel plans for hundreds — possibly thousands — of Frassati devotees from the U.S., many of whom will now miss Frassati’s canonization Mass.

Christine Wohar, executive director of FrassatiUSA, a Nashville-based apostolate that promotes devotion to Blessed Pier Giorgio, said she and many others had hoped that Acutis’ canonization date would be combined with the already-announced Frassati’s. And in fact, numerous pilgrims have praised the decision to combine the canonizations of the two young men, pointing to the immense positive example they continue to provide for young Catholics around the world.

Now that both canonizations are on a new and different date, however, many tour groups, families and individuals are facing the difficult reality that their once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage to Rome will not include the canonization Mass for their beloved Frassati — and, to make matters worse, neither will they see Acutis canonized.

Those pilgrims include Lenys Biga, a retired nurse administrator from Nashville who had planned to attend the canonization with her 16-year-old granddaughter Madeline. Although the pair will still be making the trip on Aug. 3, the thought of missing the canonization is “devastating,” Biga said.

Lenys Biga and her granddaughter Madeline.

“I find myself in a place where my dream of being there for something so special with my granddaughter will not come to fruition,” Biga told the Register.

Tour operators are scrambling, too. Milanka Lachman, founder of Tennessee-based 206 Tours , which facilitates Catholic pilgrimages to 33 countries worldwide, said the date change sparked huge disappointment across the board among their clients and hurt 206 Tours’ reputation, despite the situation being out of their hands. Though the original and new dates are only a month apart, it is incredibly challenging for a pilgrimage operator to move so many allotments around, especially during a busy Jubilee year, she said. 206 Tours had eight large pilgrimage groups scheduled to attend the canonization on Aug. 3, and all eight of those groups are set to still make the trip on that date.

The exact reasons for the date change remain opaque, even to Vatican insiders, leaving many pilgrims and Frassati devotees to speculate as to why the two saints were given a brand-new date rather than Acutis being moved to Frassati’s originally-scheduled Aug. 3.

For her part, Wohar described the entire situation as bittersweet, appreciating greatly the fact that Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati and Blessed Carlo Acutis will be canonized together, but lamenting the inconvenience and disappointment caused to so many people who had planned to be there to see Frassati named a saint.

‘The Lord Wants Us on This Trip’

Since his untimely death from polio at age 24 on July 4, 1925, Pier Giorgio Frassati has inspired young people around the world with his well-documented love for sports and the outdoors, as well as his devotion to Christ in the Eucharist and to the poor he encountered around his home in northern Italy. As a popular patron for young people, he has also lent his name to numerous schools throughout the world.

Frassati Catholic High School in Spring, Texas, north of Houston, had a group of more than 50 pilgrims — students, adults, clergy, and Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia associated with the school — scheduled to take a tour to Italy specifically for their patron’s Aug. 3 canonization.

“We knew we had to do something. This is our patron, and it’ll only happen once. And so immediately we began looking at opportunities to go on pilgrimage together,” Tim Leinhard, director of enrollment, marketing and communications at the school, told the Register.

When the June announcement came, it was simply far too late to change the travel plans for such a large group. The school still plans to bring the group to Rome on the original date — meaning they’ll miss the canonization of their school’s patron.

But Leinhard said the school community is doing its best to try to take the disappointment in stride. The school had already completed a successful “Footsteps of Frassati” pilgrimage in March, bringing 30 students to many of the notable places from Frassati’s life, such as Turin, Pollone, Florence and Rome. And the upcoming pilgrimage, though it won’t include the canonization Mass, will still offer the pilgrims incredible sights in Rome, Orvieto, and Assisi.

Leinhard, his wife, and 10-year-old daughter are also going to Rome for the August date. Leinhard said the canonization would have been a particularly special experience for his daughter, who will join the high school as a Frassati Falcon in the future.

“The change in date was a disappointment for sure, for all our pilgrims. This was the cornerstone of our original intent for the pilgrimage. So now, we’re trying to think about what God is calling us to do in reshaping this experience,” Leinhard said.

“There is a sense that it’s out of our hands, and we’re now being called to do something different.”

One possible blessing from the date change, he noted, is the fact that more of the campus community will be in Texas during the canonization Mass, meaning the school will be able to put on a festival with the local Catholic community to celebrate their patron from afar.

Lindsay Medina, one of the school’s founding staff members and chair of the school’s fine arts department, said she was “shocked” by the date change but is trying to remain open to what God is calling her to for this pilgrimage experience. She said she is grateful to Pier Giorgio Frassati, since his original canonization date was what spurred her to sign up for the trip in the first place.

“As we see Pier Giorgio’s life, we have these expectations about how things are going to go, and we prepare ourselves for that. But when we are open to what the Lord has in store, there are so many graces there, so many graces that we can’t even imagine,” Medina said.

“I know I wouldn’t have signed up for the trip normally. We’re not in a position where we can travel to Europe frequently, and so my family made a lot of sacrifices to make it happen. But for some reason, the Lord wants us on this trip with this group of people. I thought it was because of the canonization, but it’s actually for something else, and I don’t know what it is yet. Hopefully, that will be revealed when we’re on this trip.”

‘Logistical Nightmare’

While similarly expressing excitement for their upcoming trips in August and appreciation for the combining of Frassati and Acutis’ canonization dates, other pilgrims are speaking out about the disappointment they feel at missing Frassati’s once-in-a-lifetime canonization.

Biga, the retired nurse administrator planning to attend the canonization with her granddaughter, said she wanted to cancel their pilgrimage after the canonization date was moved, but lacked standing under her trip insurance to do so.

Biga and Madeline still plan to go on their trip, as it would have been a “logistical nightmare and the loss of thousands of dollars” to cancel and reschedule. She said she feels for the many groups, including youth groups, that fundraised specifically to attend the canonization.

Father Cristino Bouvette, a priest of the Diocese of Calgary in Canada, said he has been blessed to encourage devotion to Frassati among young Catholics through his role as diocesan director of vocations. Father Bouvette also founded a young adult chaplaincy for the diocese, and plans to lead a trip to Rome with a group of young people from the chaplaincy.

Father Cristino Bouvette leads a pilgrimage with young people from his diocese to World Youth Day 2023 in Lisbon.

Father Bouvette told the Register that they had planned their trip even before the Aug. 3 date for Frassati was announced, as Father Bouvette surmised that if Frassati was going to be canonized, it would make sense for it to take place during the Jubilee of Youth.

When the Aug. 3 canonization date was announced and then later rescinded, however, Father Bouvette said he was bewildered by the decision. Combining Frassati and Acutis made perfect sense to him — but why on a brand-new date?

In addition to being “a pretty big blow” to the pilgrims who had “become quite attached to [Frassati] and excited about being able to be present at his canonization,” Father Bouvette called the change an immense personal disappointment.

“When I was first going to university and throughout the time in the seminary, Pier Giorgio was a huge role model for me in my own maturation as a young adult Catholic. And so for me personally, to be imagining a scenario where I was concelebrating his canonization Mass — that was like a dream come true,” Father Bouvette said.

“And so I wasn’t just frustrated with a change in plans, or disappointed for my pilgrims. This was a personal disappointment for me because of my own devotion to Pier Giorgio.”

Taking a different view was Kate McDonough, a Catholic schoolteacher at Frassati Academy in Thornton, Colorado, who had planned to attend the canonization with her two sisters, who were set to fly over from Arizona and Alaska. She said she was most looking forward to seeing the places where Frassati lived his life, and to follow in his footsteps — more so than her excitement about the canonization Mass itself.

McDonough said she still considers it a huge blessing that she will be making a pilgrimage to Italy in August, even if it means missing the canonization.

“I don’t need to be there for a saint to be canonized,” she said. “My brother always says, ‘At the end of the day, you’re still going to be married, whether your wedding goes the way you planned it or not.’ And at the end of the day, [Frassati] will be canonized. It’s just on a different day. In God’s time, not mine.”