How St. Pier Giorgio Frassati inspires this IT guru

For the past 35 years, Pier Giorgio Frassati has brought Michigan-based IT guru Marco DeCapite closer to Christ. This week, DeCapite shared a testimonial encouraging others to get to know the newly canonized saint, too.

Marco DeCapite is president and founder of the IT company VersAlta Mission Solutions and technology director for the Diocese of Lansing. VersAlta takes its name from the young saint's famous cheer, “Verso l'alto!” which means “Toward the heights!” 

However, as a young man, DeCapite never imagined naming a company in honor of a saint.

“The extent of my Catholicism at that time was meeting my weekly Sunday obligation,” he wrote in his Sept. 8 testimonial for the Diocese of Lansing website.

As a young man, DeCapite took a trip to Rome with his family. While there, he happened to attend the beatification of then-Blessed Pier Giorgio, but DeCapite didn’t know anything about the holy man from Turin and soon forgot the experience.

Four years later, though, DeCapite began to develop a devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, which helped him take his faith more seriously. Soon after, he got married and moved to Denver, Colorado. While there, he became involved with the young adult ministry, which sometimes met in a “Frassati Room,” and he also heard talk of something called the “Frassati Society.”  

The name stuck in DeCapite’s mind, but it wasn’t until he happened upon the booklet from St. Pier Giorgio’s beatification that he remembered his experience at the Vatican. He became fascinated by the young man, who became his example of how to be holy in the modern world.

“Here was a joyful, playful, average college student,” DeCapite wrote for the Diocese of Lansing. “He wasn't the best academically, but he worked at it. He was athletic, a mountain climber, soccer player, skier, and just a natural leader. He didn't let his upbringing define him. He identified first as a child of God, whose full duty was to live in service to others.”

DeCapite related a number of facts about Pier Giorgio's life and his example of radical humility, compassion, and love. After the saint died at 24, his family was amazed to see thousands of people show up, particularly the poor from his home city of Turin. He touched thousands of lives with Christ’s love, but he did it without calling attention to himself.

DeCapite recalls a famous moment when the saint was asked why he spent time in the slums. 

He replied, “Jesus comes to me every day in Holy Communion and I repay him in my very small way by visiting the poor.”

Pope Leo XIV declared Pier Giorgio a saint Sept. 7. 

DeCapite concluded his testimonial by praying that St. Pier Giorgio’s canonization “will help inspire many more to discover him and seek love and peace that only comes through the kind of relationship that Saint Pier Giorgio had with Our Lord.”