Saint of the Month: St. Carlo Acutis

St. Carlo Acutis was a young student and catechist who used computer knowledge to bring the stories of Eucharistic miracles to the world. Carlo was born in 1991 in London to wealthy Italian parents Andrea and Antonia Acutis. Both parents came from families that owned successful businesses, and they moved to Milan when Carlo was an infant. For the most part, Carlo was raised by nannies. At six, he attended a school operated by women religious.

UNUSUAL PIETY

The Acutis’s were not practicing Catholics; Antonia later stated that the only Masses she had ever attended were her First Communion, Confirmation, and wedding. From early childhood, Carlo showed an unusual piety, including requesting at age three to be taken to church to pray for his grandfather, who had just died. Even before receiving his First Communion, he would join elderly women to recite the Rosary in church. He received First Holy Communion at age seven.
At school, Carlo was active in soccer and using computers. He was known to be a friend to all and especially had a protective nature toward the other students who were teased or disabled. 

FASCINATION WITH COMPUTERS

He purchased books about computer programming and coding and studied them. One of the Acutis family employees was a Hindu man from Mauritius named Rajesh. He spent a lot of time with Carlo, and the two became good friends. During the many times that Carlo asked Rajesh to take him into a church, he would lovingly explain the Real Presence in the tabernacle. He also took great care to explain the truths of Catholicism, causing Rajesh and another Hindu friend and his mother to request baptism. He would use his own money to purchase sleeping bags and food for the homeless in Milan. The family owned a summer home in Assisi, giving Carlo access to the shrines of Sts. Francis and Clare. Carlo loved to study the lives of the saints, including Francis of Assisi and child saints Tarcisius, Dominic Savio, and Francisco and Jacinta Marto. At age twelve, he began serving as a catechist at his local parish. He asked his parents to take him on pilgrimages to the sites of Eucharistic miracles and to saint’s shrines. He had developed a fascination with the numerous Eucharistic miracles that had taken place over the centuries, and he began to study and catalogue them, creating a website so that they could become more readily known. 

EVANGELIZATION PROJECT

He was deeply troubled that people seemed to be drifting away from the Faith, and he knew this would be a good way to reach them. His work became known, so both his pastor and one of his high school priests asked him to create websites for them, and he won a national competition for this work. He then created his own website listing all of the worldwide Eucharistic miracles in history, as well as the Church-approved Marian apparitions. The website was to be introduced at St. Charles Borromeo Church in Rome on October 4, 2006.
Just three days earlier, on October 1, Carlo came down with a very irritated throat. Two different doctors misdiagnosed him. Within days, his throat became worse, and he was urinating blood. By October 8, he was too weak to attend Sunday Mass, and his parents brought him to a specialized clinic. There, he was diagnosed with leukemia, hospitalized, and placed on a ventilator. Before falling into a coma, he told his mother that he was offering his sufferings for the Church and for the Holy Father, Benedict XVI at the time. He died October 12, 2006 at age fifteen. Mourners came to visit his body during a wake that lasted four days, including the handicapped, elderly, and children whose lives he had touched.
            St. Carlo Acutis lived his heroic virtue as a splendid example for youth and teens during an age of rapidly growing technology. Knowing its dangers, he limited himself to one hour per week of computer recreation. He knew the dangers that pornography posed and warned his friends to use the internet for good and not evil. He treasured his time spent in Eucharistic Adoration and wanted everyone to know that joy. In his memory, two bishops organized the material that Carlo had gathered and created a traveling exhibit of the Eucharistic miracles that has been translated into eighteen languages and has been visited more than ten thousand times. Carlo was beatified in 2020 and canonized September 7, 2025 at St. Peter’s Square, along with another Italian youth who lived a life of heroic virtue, Pier Giorgio Frassati. Carlo’s parents, younger siblings, and former nanny Rajesh were in attendance at the canonization. Since Carlo had requested to be buried at Assisi, his remains were transferred there in 2019, where they are venerated at St. Mary Major Church. St. Carlo’s feast day is October 12, and he is considered to be the patron of the internet.