CV NEWS FEED // An author in The Conversation outlined how the Vatican’s upcoming canonization of Carlo Acutis reflects their desire to appeal to millennial and Gen Z Catholics.
Michael A. Di Giovine wrote about the upcoming canonization of Blessed Carlo Acutis, who will be the first millennial canonized by the Church. His canonization has been set for 2025, though the Vatican has not given a specific date. A computer programmer, he died in 2006, at the age of 15, from a rare form of leukemia.
Di Giovine wrote that Blessed Carlo’s appeal “lies in being an ordinary person who models everyday faith – whom Pope Francis calls a ‘saint next door.’” Di Giovine also noted that biographers “mix stories of his holiness with discussions of his love of Nutella (…) his interest in soccer, hiking and searching for information on Google, and his passion for Pokémon and Halo video games.”
An EWTN article outlines the boy’s heroic virtue, an essential attribute for canonization. It states that the teenager offered all of the suffering he endured from his illness for the Church and Pope Benedict XVI, saying, “I offer all of my suffering to the Lord for the pope and for the Church in order not to go to purgatory but to go straight to heaven.”
The English-Italian boy had a lifelong dedication to the Eucharist, despite the lukewarm Catholicism of his parents, who rarely went to Mass. He inspired his mother’s deepening conversion, and she told EWTN: “He used to say, ‘There are queues in front of a concert, in front of a football match, but I don’t see these queues in front of the Blessed Sacrament’ … So, for him the Eucharist was the center of his life.” Carlo’s mother, Antonia Salzano Acutis, recently wrote a biography of him called My Son Carlo.
His piety also inspired the conversion of an au pair who worked for the family when Carlo was a little boy, a Hindu man named Rajesh Mohur. Carlo taught Rajesh Mohur about the rosary and the True Presence, and Mohur said Carlo’s love for the poor was particularly impressive.
The EWTN article noted Carlo’s other impressive attributes: he was known as a faithful friend, and he stood up for other students, especially those with special needs, who were bullied at his school. He talked to his friends about the importance of the sacraments and chastity, and he gave “a passionate defense for the protection of life from the moment of conception” in a classroom argument about abortion.
Blessed Carlo’s deep love and reverence for the Eucharistic Lord inspired him to use his technological skills to spread a love of the Eucharist. He compiled miracles in an online exhibit that many Catholic parishes and shrines, as well as the National Eucharistic Congress, have used as a basis for in-person exhibits.
Rev. Will Conquer, who wrote a biography of Blessed Carlo titled “A Millenial in Paradise,” said that Blessed Carlo was set apart from previous saints who had never “used cell phones, played PlayStation videogames, or searched for information on Google.” In contrast, Blessed Carlo has been dubbed “God’s influencer” and the “patron saint of the Internet” by mainstream media outlets.
Di Giovine concluded that “a tech-savvy and socially conscious generation of young Catholics” would be able to identify with Blessed Carlo, “a perpetual ‘teenager in heaven,’ laid to rest in Nikes, jeans and a warmup jacket.”
