Carlo Acutis (3 May 1991 – 12 October 2006) was a British-born[4] Italian website designer who documented Eucharistic miracles and approved Marian apparitions, and catalogued both on a website he designed before his death from leukaemia.[5] Acutis was noted for his cheerfulness, computer skills, and devotion to the Eucharist, which became a core theme of his life.[6]
He was beatified by Pope Francis on 10 October 2020. After a second miracle attributed to the intercession of Acutis was confirmed in May 2024, Pope Francis granted approval in July 2024 to continue forward with canonization, which is scheduled for 27 April 2025.[7]
Early life
Carlo Acutis was born in London, England, on 3 May 1991, to Andrea Acutis and Antonia Salzano, members of wealthy Italian families.[6][8][9][10] His father's family worked in the Italian insurance industry and his mother's ran a publishing company.[11] Acutis's maternal great-grandmother was born in the United States and came from a family of landowners in New York.[12] His baptism took place on 18 May 1991 in the Church of Our Lady of Dolours, Chelsea.[13] His paternal grandfather, Carlo, was his godfather; and his maternal grandmother, Luana, was his godmother.[14] Neither of his parents were religious.[5][6][15]
Acutis's parents worked in London and Germany before he was born, and moved to Milan shortly after, in September 1991.[6][15][16] They worked in family businesses and he was cared for by an Irish nanny.[11] Aside from a few visits to a daycare centre, most of Acutis's early care came from nannies.[17] During one daycare visit, he was bullied by other children. A Polish nanny, who thought he was too nice, tried to teach him to set boundaries so that other children would not take his toys. He replied: "Jesus would not be happy if I lost my temper."[16] In the summer, Acutis would stay with his mother's parents in Centola.[12] After spending the day at the beach, he would join a number of older women in the local parish church to pray the rosary.[18] His family also owned a boat at Santa Margherita Ligure, near the Basilica of St. Margaret of Antiochia.[19]
Acutis attended his first primary school in September 1997, the San Carlo Institute in Milan; but as the school was a distance from their home, three months later he transferred to the Marcelline Tommaseo Institute, run by the Sisters of St. Marcellina. [20] During his walks to school, he took particular interest in the foreign caretakers of the different homes along his route; learning their names and stopping to greet them personally each morning.[21] Upon completing middle school, Acutis went on to the JesuitInstituto Leone XIII high school.[22] Although he was an average student, he liked to read and pursued other academic areas independently, including computer science and teaching himself the saxophone.[23] Acutis also had a tutor who helped him with his homework and followed him to church.[24]
Acutis's mother Antonia grew up in a secular family.[28] She was confirmed while she was in college and was married in the church, but she did not attend Mass before Acutis was born.[29] Her son's faith and his insistent questions brought her back to the faith.[28] It was similar for his father.[30] Antonia was asked and agreed to lead a catechism class after Acutis made his First Communion, though she did not feel qualified to do so.[29] During his lifetime, Carlo remained an only child and his cousin, Flavia, was his best friend.[31] Precisely four years to the day after his death, his mother, Antonia, then aged 44, gave birth to twins, Michele and Francesca. She is said to attribute this event to her son's intercession.[32][33]
The Acutises employed a Brahmin immigrant from India, Rajesh Mohur, to work in their household. He and Acutis became friends.[34] In time, after speaking with Acutis about Christianity, Mohur asked to be baptized. A friend of Mohur's, Seeven Kistnen, also converted and was baptized after meeting with Acutis and hearing him speak about the faith.[35] Mohur's mother, visiting from Mauritius, attended Mass with Mohur and Acutis, who talked with her at length afterwards, and she too asked to be baptized.[36]
Religious education and devotion
When Acutis was three years old, his maternal grandfather, Antonio Salzano, died. Several days earlier, he was present when his grandfather received the Anointing of the Sick.[37] The grandfather was said to have appeared to him in a dream asking for prayer. Shortly after his death, Acutis put on his coat while his grandmother was minding him and asked to be taken to church. When she asked him why, he said he wanted to pray for his grandfather, whom he declared "had gone to see Jesus".[38] When Acutis displayed an interest in Catholic religious practice, his questions were answered by the family's Polish babysitter.[39][40]
When Acutis was 12 years old, he became a catechist in his parish, Santa Maria Segreta. At the time, the Italian catechetical structure typically relied on young team leaders in youth groups, as contrasted with adults, to deliver religious education to their peers.[41] Acutis's parish priest said of him that:
Carlo was a young man who was exceptionally transparent. He really wanted to progress in loving his parents, God, his classmates, and those who loved him less. He wanted to apply himself in his studies to educate himself in his catechism class as well as in school and computer science.[42]
People around him considered him a "computer geek" due to his passion for and skill with computers and the internet.[6][5] He was skilled in Java as well as C++[45] and often helped others with technical issues.[46] When he was 14, his parish priest asked him to create a webpage for his parish, Santa Maria Segreta in Milan.[45] After this, a priest at his high school asked him to create a website to promote volunteering. For this work, he won a national competition called "Sarai volontario" (You will be a volunteer).[47]
Keen to transmit the faith to a younger generation,[48] Acutis applied himself to creating a website dedicated to cataloguing each reported Eucharistic miracle in the world and maintaining a list of the approved Marian apparitions of the Catholic Church. He appreciated Blessed Giacomo Alberione's initiatives to use the media to evangelize and proclaim the Gospel, aiming to do likewise with his own website.[49] Acutis launched the website in 2004[27] and worked on it for two and a half years, involving his entire family in the project. It was unveiled on 4 October 2006, the Feast of St. Francis, only days before his death.[50] Because he was hospitalized, Acutis was not able to attend the debut of his exhibition at Rome's Church of San Carlo Borromeo.[51] The exhibition was also presented at his high school, the Leo XIII Institute.[50]
Illness and death
On 1 October 2006, Acutis developed an inflammation of the throat. His parents took him to a doctor who diagnosed parotitis and dehydration, which a second doctor, a family friend, confirmed.[52] A few days later, Acutis's pain worsened and he had blood in his urine. By Sunday, 8 October, Acutis was too weak to get out of bed to go to Mass. Acutis was taken to a clinic that specialized in blood diseases and was diagnosed with acute promyelocytic leukemia.[53] He was given little chance of recovery. He was rushed to intensive care and put on a respirator. After a sleepless night, Acutis was transferred to San Gerardo Hospital north of Milan, one of only three hospitals in Italy equipped to treat his condition.[54]
The hospital staff called in their chaplain and he performed the anointing of the sick. When a nurse came in to care for Acutis, Acutis asked her not to wake his parents since they were already very tired and he did not want to worry them more.[55] Acutis offered his suffering both for Pope Benedict XVI and for the Catholic Church, saying:, "I offer to the Lord the sufferings that I will have to undergo for the Pope and for the Church."[56][53] The doctors treating his final illness had asked him if he was in great pain, to which he replied, "There are people who suffer much more than me".[6][55] His final words to his mother were:
Mom, don't be afraid. Since Jesus became a man, death has become the passage towards life, and we don't need to flee it. Let us prepare ourselves to experience something extraordinary in the eternal life.[57]
Acutis fell into a coma and was taken to the intensive care unit where he underwent a blood-cleansing treatment. After a cerebral haemorrhage, he was pronounced brain-dead on 11 October, aged 15. Acutis died the next day, 12 October 2006, at 6:45p.m.[58] His parents brought his body home, where people came for four days to pay their last respects. A crowd of strangers attended his funeral, including young people who had abandoned the Church and those who returned for a memorial Mass three months later.[59]
It was Acutis's final wish to be buried in Assisi. On 6 April 2019, his body was brought to the Sanctuary of the Spoliation and venerated at its final resting place. Overnight, the procession stopped at the Cathedral of San Rufino and the diocesan choir sang a Non io, ma Dio, ("Not me, but God"), a hymn especially composed for the occasion by Marco Mammoli.[60] While Acutis's body may appear incorrupt behind the view glass, it is actually encased in a wax layer that was molded to look like his body prior to burial—this practice is common for the presentation of saints' bodies so that pilgrims can see the saints as they were when they died.[61] The rector of Santa Maria Maggiore in Assisi, where Carlo’s tomb is housed, said that Acutis's body was discovered "fully integral," though not intact.[62][63]
Legacy
In 2020 the Catholic Church recognised the curing of a child's pancreatic disease as a miracle attributed to Acutis's intercession. Following this, Acutis's mother told the press that her son had appeared to her in dreams saying that he would be not only beatified but also canonized a saint in the future.[64] A website was created for his canonization cause. Others were created for educators, young people, and prayer groups, and for each of the four exhibitions that he inspired.[65]
In memory of Acutis, Bishops Raffaello Martinelli and Angelo Comastri have helped to organize a traveling photo exhibition of all the Eucharistic miracle sites. It has since traveled to dozens of different countries across five continents.[66] The preface to the print version of the exhibit was written by Cardinal Angelo Comastri[50] and has been translated into 18 languages. It has traveled to more than 10,000 places, including churches, congressional palaces, youth clubs, and welcome centers. The exhibit was also brought to the canonization of Francisco and Jacinta Marto in Fatima, Portugal.[67]
Praise and life adaptations
Relics of Blessed Carlo Acutis and Saint Manuel González García visiting the St. Clement Chapel at Dartmouth College
In the document that concluded the Synod on Young People in 2018, Pope Francis called Acutis a model for people who live normal lives to grow in holiness,[68] and praised him:
Carlo did not fall into a trap. He saw that many young people, if they seem to be different, end up, in reality, looking like each other, by running behind what powerful people impose on them via mechanisms of consumption and stupor. In this way, they do not let the gifts that the Lord has made for them flow into them. They do not offer the world these personal and unique gifts that the Lord has sown in each one of them.[69]
Relics of Carlo Acutis, along with his Eucharistic miracles photo exhibition, have been touring around the world.[74] Adaptations of Acutis's life story include a comic book[75] and a video game.[76]
The call for Acutis to be beatified began not long after his death.[6] On 12 October 2012, the sixth anniversary of his death, the Archdiocese of Milan opened the cause for canonization.[77]
The campaign gained momentum on 13 May 2013, when the Congregation for the Causes of Saints issued a nihil obstat stating there was nothing preventing the cause from moving forward.[68] He was then named a Servant of God, the first stage on the path towards sainthood.[5][78] The Lombardy Episcopal Conference approved the petition for the official canonization cause to proceed at a meeting in 2013.[78]
The opening of the diocesan investigation was held on 15 February 2013, with Cardinal Angelo Scola inaugurating the process, and concluding it on 24 November 2016. Scola said Acutis was not called to be "a movie star, but a star in Heaven" and that Acutis was "a new treasure in the Ambrosian church".[79] The formal introduction to the cause occurred on 13 May 2013, and Acutis became titled a "Servant of God". Pope Francis next confirmed his life as one of heroic virtue on 5 July 2018, declaring him Venerable.[80][81]
Heart relic of Carlo Acutis
On 14 November 2019, the Vatican's Medical Council of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints expressed a positive opinion about a miracle in Brazil attributed to Acutis's intercession.[82][83] Luciana Vianna had taken her son, Mattheus, who was born with a pancreatic defect that made eating difficult, to a prayer service. Beforehand, she had prayed a novena asking for the teenager Acutis's intercession. During the service, Mattheus had asked that he should not "throw up as much". Immediately following the service, he told his mother that he felt healed and asked for solid food when he came home. Until then, he had been on an all-liquid diet.[84][85] After a detailed investigation, Pope Francis confirmed the miracle's authenticity in a decree on 21 February 2020, leading to Acutis's beatification.
Since the beatification ceremony on 10 October 2020, his relics have been on display with his tomb in the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore.[89]
Canonization process
On 23 May 2024, Pope Francis recognized a second miracle attributed to the intercession of Acutis.[90][91][92] The miracle attributed to his intercession occurred in 2022 when a Costa Rican woman named Valeria had fallen off her bike and suffered a brain haemorrhage with doctors giving her a low chance of survival. Valeria's mother, Lilliana, prayed for the intercession of Acutis and visited his tomb. The same day, Valeria began to breathe independently again and was able to walk the next day with all evidence of the haemorrhage having disappeared.[93]
On 1 July 2024, Pope Francis presided at an Ordinary Consistory of Cardinals, which approved the canonization of 15 people, including Blessed Carlo Acutis.[94] On 20 November 2024, it was announced that Acutis would be canonized during the Jubilee of Youth from 25–27 April 2025, with the Diocese of Assisi confirming it would be on Sunday, 27 April.[7]
^Guatri Luigi (14 January 2014). Vite vissute Cultura & Società (in Italian). EGEA spa. ISBN978-8823876057. Acutis family background and leading role in Italy's business community.
^Kock, Claudia (11 October 2020). "Der Wochenheilige. Der selige Carlo Acutis" [This week's saint. Blessed Carlo Acutis]. Die Tagespost (in German). Archived from the original on 11 October 2020. Retrieved 11 October 2020.
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