A young man from Manchester, England, who “committed himself totally to God” could one day be included among the ranks of Sts. Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati as calls continue for him to be named a saint.
Pedro Ballester died on Jan. 13, 2018, at the age of 21 of bone cancer after a life of prayer, sacrifice, and virtue. Vatican representatives are now in the process of interviewing his family and friends to gauge whether a cause should be formally opened for the former university student.
Father Joseph Evans, chaplain of Greygarth Hall, Manchester, who accompanied Ballester during the last year of his life, told EWTN News: “People like Pedro and Carlo Acutis, they didn’t keep their options open. They committed themselves totally to God. They found happiness in deep self-giving and deep suffering.”
Carlo Acutis, a 15-year-old Italian, died in 2006 and was canonized a saint in 2025.
Evans told EWTN News that “young people are attracted to self-giving and self-sacrifice and practice because of our soft, consumerist world.”
A gift for friendship and commitment to God
Ballester was born into a Catholic family and his Spanish parents are married members of Opus Dei, a personal prelature of the Catholic Church founded in Spain by St. Josemaría Escrivá in 1928. Ballester himself joined Opus Dei in 2013 as a “numerary” member — meaning he made a commitment to celibacy for life and living out the charism of Opus Dei in the world.
After winning a place at Imperial College in London to study chemical engineering, Ballester experienced intense back pain during his first semester, after which he was diagnosed with advanced cancer of the pelvis.
During his illness, he would often go to Christie’s Hospital in Manchester for cancer treatment where his holiness and kindness were noted by many. He befriended his fellow patients and the nurses, showing a deep interest in their lives outside the hospital.
“He made really good friends with them,” Evans told EWTN News. “He was genuinely interested in you. He really inspired people in a very, very natural way. He got through to people and spoke to them about God.”
On one occasion, Ballester wrote a card to Pope Francis, signed by his fellow cancer patients, and delivered it in person to the pontiff in Rome in November 2015. His father, also named Pedro, recounted how his son told Pope Francis: “I just wanted to let you know that I got cancer, and I offer all the sufferings for you and for the Church.”
From that point on, the young man’s suffering worsened and he regularly experienced acute pain leading up to his death.
Paying tribute to the way Ballester responded to his disease, Evans said: “He was uniting himself to the suffering of Christ. The pain he was going through was a much bigger share in the passion of Christ, offering that suffering to Christ for souls, for salvation. Above all, he would say the best form of prayer was offering up our suffering.”
Opus Dei, which is promoting Ballester’s cause for sainthood, is hoping the impressive young adult will follow in the footsteps of Carlo Acutis and Pier Georgio Frassati, who was famous for serving the poor in Milan.
Speaking to EWTN News about the impact of such young people, Jack Valero from Opus Dei said: “There seems to be a whole collection of people, [a] new generation of Catholics who are going to lead the way. God is saying that, now in the 21st century, ‘I’m going to give you a whole load of people that are going to be models for the young.’”
He added: “[Pedro] could be somebody who can teach us to be happy with whatever our circumstances are, and that to be close to God is to be happy.”
Valero also described Ballester as a “special” person who was “a really friendly guy throughout his life, and he continued to be a very friendly guy in his sickness.”
Pinpointing Ballester’s “ability to make friends” as a strong evangelistic tool, he said: “He realized that he didn’t have much long to live. So he asked people: ‘Are you going to Mass? Are you OK with God? Are you being good to people?’ This ability to make friends was directed to bring them close to God.”
Accounts of Ballester’s impact on people have spread around the world to places such as Mexico, Spain, and Kenya, while a prayer card asking for his intercession has now been translated into 28 languages.
Additionally, a documentary called “A Friend in Heaven” has been released that highlights the impact of Ballester‘s short life, describing him as a “student with a gift of friendship and a love for God.”
Looking to the future, Evans urged caution while the Church “makes its mind up” about Ballester becoming a saint, but he told EWTN News: “He loved chatting with people. He was very generous. There’s a tremendous spontaneous phenomenon of devotion to him in all sorts of places throughout the world.”
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