Originally published at National Catholic Register
Father Juan Manuel Gutiérrez is a Mexican priest who now serves in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the largest and probably the most diverse in the United States. His name is now forever linked to the young Italian Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, who died at the age of 24 and who next year, during the 2025 Jubilee, will be declared a saint thanks to the miracle the 38-year-old priest experienced through his intercession.
On Nov. 25, Pope Francis approved the decree of the miracle Father Gutiérrez received through the intercession of Frassati.
‘I declared myself an atheist’
“My Mexican family was Catholic, my mother was a very Catholic woman; she belonged to the group of women at the church devoted to Our Lady of Guadalupe … I received my sacraments as a child, my first Communion, baptism, confirmation, but at the age of 14 or so I began to separate myself from the Church to the point that I stopped attending Mass, I stopped praying,” the priest recounted in an interview with EWTN Noticias, the Spanish-language evening news program of EWTN News.
“I even began to believe that God didn’t exist, that he was a human invention that, as some
