Who?

We are a group of young Catholic men in McLean County inspired by the life of St. Pier Giorgio Frassati. Truth, virtue, and justice are the fundamental pillars by which we form men within our fellowship, so that likewise, they may form society. We meet weekly to discuss texts¹ and how we may implement these ideas into the world.

The Mission and Principles

The mission of the Frassati Society is to strengthen the Catholic community in the Bloomington/Normal region. This initiative will prepare Catholics to be leaders in their community, forming them in Catholic social teaching and providing a structured path for the wider Catholic community to live out these principles in the universal call to holiness. The Frassati Society is not merely about fellowship and study, but about contributing to the renewal of Catholic culture and community life. It is rooted in the Social Kingship of Christ, seeking to restore authentic Christian civilization beginning at the local level, one intentional community at a time.

Inspired by the witness of St. Pier Giorgio Frassati, whose life united prayer, study, service, and joy, the Frassati Society embraces both prayer and action, for intentional social change. As St. Frassati frequently said, “Charity is not enough: we need social reform.” Like Frassati, we aim to form men who live their faith visibly and courageously in the world, bringing Christ into every sphere of life with a spirit of generosity, friendship, and zeal.

Rooted in the Social Kingship of Christ

The Frassati Society finds its foundation in the kingship of Christ in our hearts and in society. Christ reigns not only in heaven but here and now, and His reign is meant to order every aspect of human life—personal, communal, and societal. This truth, proclaimed by Pope Pius XI in Quas Primas, reminds us that there is no sphere of life immune from the sovereignty of Christ. 

Modern society often exalts freedom as autonomy, disconnected from truth, but the Frassati Society seeks to restore the authentic Christian vision: freedom ordered to the good, realized in service to God and neighbor. Only under Christ’s kingship can men and women live in genuine liberty and flourish as persons created in the image of God.

This renewal must begin in our hearts, conforming them more and more to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The “priority of the conversion of heart…imposes the obligation of bringing the appropriate remedies to institutions and living conditions when they are an inducement to sin, so that they conform to the norms of justice and advance the good rather than hinder it.” ¹Through prayer, sacraments, and mortification, we will become more like Christ so as to allow His love to permeate all areas of our lives. We put our hope in Christ and not in worldly powers. “If we cannot hope for more than is effectively attainable at any given time, or more than is promised by political or economic authorities, our lives will soon be without hope.”² “Put not your trust in princes, in the children of men, in whom there is no salvation.”³ Without a foundation in the spiritual life, all public efforts will be vain and ultimately unfruitful. Christ cannot rule over society unless He first rules in our hearts, minds, and actions. 

“Christ’s redemptive work, while essentially concerned with the salvation of men, includes also the renewal of the whole temporal order.”⁴ The Frassati Society does not wait for top-down reform, but builds from the ground up, forming a community rooted in the Eucharist, living visibly Catholic lives, and working for the common good. Public prayer, sacramental life, and shared works of charity serve as a leaven in society, countering the privatization of faith and manifesting that Christ reigns in every part of life. 

The Frassati Society recognizes that authentic renewal cannot be built on the foundations of error. Modern society has constructed a false framework of understanding, the liberal world order following the French Revolution, where freedom is reduced to self-expression, truth is treated as subjective, and religion is confined to the private sphere. These assumptions of individualism, “neutral” secularism, etc., often unnoticeably shape how people imagine the world and their place within it. The Gospel is the light by which reality is seen, so it is with this Good News that the errors of these misconceptions are addressed. “Where sin has perverted the social climate, it is necessary to call for the conversion of hearts and appeal to the grace of God. Charity urges just reforms. There is no solution to the social question apart from the Gospel.”⁵ We cannot evangelize effectively if we accept the categories of the secular world that denies the very possibility of truth. The Frassati Society seeks to form minds and communities capable of perceiving reality as it truly is, created, redeemed, and ordered under the Kingship of Christ, perfectly maintained within the cosmic order by the hand of God.

Reading List

1. Action: A Manual for the Reconstruction of Christendom, Jean Ousset

2. A Manual of Catholic Action, Civardi

3. Integralism, Thomas Crean, O.P. and Alan Finister

4. A Summary of Catholic Social Teaching, Spitzer

Footnotes