Carlo Acutis

Carlo Acutis (3 May 1991 – 12 October 2006) was a British-born teenager, primarily of Italian ancestry, known for his devotion to the Eucharist, with him creating a website documenting Eucharistic miracles prior to his death from leukemia at the age of fifteen. His canonization is set to take place on 7 September 2025.

Early life

Carlo Acutis was born in London, England, on 3 May 1991, to Andrea Acutis and Antonia Salzano, members of wealthy Italian families. His father's family worked in the Italian insurance industry and his mother's ran a publishing company. Acutis's maternal great-grandmother was born in the United States and came from a family of landowners in New York. His baptism took place on 18 May 1991 in the Church of Our Lady of Dolours, Chelsea. His paternal grandfather, Carlo, was his godfather; and his maternal grandmother, Luana, was his godmother. Neither of his parents were religious.

Acutis's parents worked in London and Germany before he was born, and moved to Milan shortly after, in September 1991. They worked in family businesses and he was cared for by an Irish nanny. Aside from a few visits to a daycare centre, most of Acutis's early care came from nannies. 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." In the summer, Acutis would stay with his mother's parents in Centola. After spending the day at the beach, he would join a number of older women in the local parish church to pray the rosary. His family also owned a boat at Santa Margherita Ligure, near the Basilica of St. Margaret of Antiochia.

Acutis attended his first primary school in September 1997, the San Carlo Institute in Milan; but as the school was at a distance from their home, three months later he transferred to the Marcelline Tommaseo Institute, run by the  Sisters of St. Marcellina. 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. Upon completing middle school, Acutis went on to the Jesuit Instituto Leone XIII high school. Although he was an average student, he liked to read and pursued other academic areas independently, including computer science and teaching himself the saxophone. Acutis also had a tutor who helped him with his homework and followed him to church. Acutis loved playing video games such as ''Halo'', ''Mario'', and ''Pokémon'', although his mother claims he limited himself to just one hour of gaming a week to avoid addiction.

On 16 June 1998, when he was seven years old, Acutis received his First Communion at the convent of Sant'Ambrogio ad Nemus, Milan. Acutis was also a frequent communicant and attended Eucharistic Adoration. He was confirmed five years later on 24 May 2003 at Santa Maria Segreta Church in Milan.

Family life

Acutis's mother Antonia grew up in a secular family. She was confirmed while she was in college and was married in the church, but she did not attend Mass before Acutis was born. She testified that her son's faith and his insistent questions brought her back to the faith. The Acutis family employed a Brahmin immigrant from Mauritius, Rajesh Mohur, to work in their household. He and Acutis became friends. 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. 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.

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. 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". When Acutis displayed an interest in Catholic religious practice, his questions were answered by the family's Polish babysitter.

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. Acutis's parish priest said of him that:

Acutis showed an interest in the lives of saints, especially Francis of Assisi, Francisco and Jacinta Marto, Dominic Savio, Tarcisius, Bernadette Soubirous, and Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi. He is said to have prayed to his guardian angel frequently and exhibited a special devotion to St. Michael the Archangel.

In March 2025, ''The Economist'' published an article stating that Acutis' childhood best friend claimed he did not remember Acutis as a "very pious boy", nor did he even know that Carlo was religious. His schoolmates testified that he was kind, but did not remember him to be publicly devout although they did note that he expressed religious viewpoints at times. These accounts were disputed by Carlo's mother, Antonia.

Websites

People around Acutis considered him a " computer geek" due to his passion for and skill with computers and the internet. He was skilled in Java as well as C++ and often helped others with technical issues. When he was 14, his parish priest asked him to create a webpage for his parish, Santa Maria Segreta in Milan. 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 (Italian, "You will be a volunteer").

Acutis created 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. Acutis launched the website in 2004 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. Because he was hospitalized, Acutis was not able to attend the debut of his exhibition at Rome's Church of San Carlo Borromeo. The exhibition was also presented at his high school, the Leo XIII Institute.

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. 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 leukaemia. He was given little chance of recovery. He was rushed to intensive care and put on a ventilator. 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.

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. 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." 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". His final words to his mother were:

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. 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.

Exhumation to Assisi

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 ("Not me, but God"), a hymn especially composed for the occasion by Marco Mammoli. 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. 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.

Legacy

The Church in Assisi has been active in promoting Acutis's cause.

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. 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. Due to his enjoyment of video games in life, Acutis has been described as the "first gamer saint".

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. The preface to the print version of the exhibit was written by Cardinal Angelo Comastri 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 Fátima, Portugal.

The life of Carlo Acutis has inspired multiple media adaptations, including a comic book, a video game, a documentary film, an animated film, and a brickfilm.

Beatification

The call for Acutis to be beatified began soon after his death. On 12 October 2012, the sixth anniversary of his death, the Archdiocese of Milan opened the cause for canonization.

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. He was then named a Servant of God, the first stage on the path towards sainthood. The Lombardy Episcopal Conference approved the petition for the official canonization cause to proceed at a meeting in 2013.

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". 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.

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. 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. After a detailed investigation, Pope Francis confirmed the miracle's authenticity in a decree on 21 February 2020, leading to Acutis's beatification.

Within a month of the decree, the beatification ceremony was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, during which the country was placed on lockdown. It was rescheduled for 10 October 2020 and was held in the Upper Church of the Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi in Assisi, Italy, with Cardinal Agostino Vallini presiding on the Pope's behalf. , the postulator for Acutis's cause is Nicola Gori.

Relics

Since the beatification ceremony on 10 October 2020, his relics have been on display with his tomb in the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore.

Canonization

On 23 May 2024, Pope Francis recognized a second miracle attributed to the intercession of Acutis. 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.

On 1 July 2024, Pope Francis presided at an ordinary consistory of cardinals, which approved the canonization of 15 people, including Blessed Carlo Acutis. On 20 November 2024, it was announced that Acutis would be canonized in the 2025 Jubilee during the Jubilee of Teenagers from 25 to 27 April 2025, with the Diocese of Assisi confirming it would be on Sunday, 27 April. However, following Pope Francis's death on Easter Monday, 21 April 2025, the Vatican announced that the ceremony would be postponed. On 13 June 2025, Pope Leo XIV announced at a general consistory that he would be canonized alongside Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati on 7 September 2025.

See also

* Chiara Badanoyoung Italian Blessed who died of osteosarcoma
* Chronological list of saints and blesseds in the 21st century
* List of beatified people
* Antonietta Meoyoung Italian Venerable who died of osteosarcoma

References

Works cited

*

External links

Official website

The apparitions of Our Lady
– List of Marian apparitions catalogued by Acutis


– List of Eucharistic miracles catalogued by Acutis



Wolverhampton Parish of Blessed Carlo Acutis
– Incorporating the churches of St Peter & Paul, St Michael and St Bernadette.

"My Son Carlo"
– biography of Carlo Acutis by his mother, Antonia Salzano Acutis

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1991 births
2006 deaths
21st-century English people
21st-century Italian people
21st-century Roman Catholics
21st-century venerated Christians
Beatifications by Pope Francis
Child deaths from disease
Deaths from acute myeloid leukemia
Deaths from cancer in Lombardy
Deaths from leukemia in Italy
English beatified people
English emigrants to Italy
English people of Italian descent
English Roman Catholics
Italian beatified people
Italian Roman Catholics
Patrons of World Youth Day
People from London
People from Milan
Roman Catholic child blesseds