This wonderful account of the life of St Carlo was given by Sarah Andrews, Birmingham Branch on Sunday Morning after Mass. It was so well received by the members present that it was decided to offer the full Talk here.
St Carlo Acutis Patron Saint of the Internet, God’s Influencer, the first Millennial Saint
When we think of saints, we picture people from a bygone era, like St Francis of Assisi, St Thomas More, St Margaret Clitherow. They are frozen in time in stained-glass windows or as statues.
On 7th September 2025, on screens across the world we witnessed tens of thousands of people gathered in Rome around the image of a young man in a red polo shirt with backpack and sunglasses.
Less than 19 years after he died (aged 15), Carlo Acutis was canonised a saint of our time by Pope Leo XIV. Carlo grew up in the 1990s and 2000s. He wore jeans and trainers, played video games, traded Pokémon cards and had an amazing sense of humour.
We ladies of Wolverhampton CWL Section, part of Birmingham branch, belong to the first parish in Britain to be dedicated to St Carlo! It was dedicated in December 2020, after our parish priest, Monsignor Canon Mark Crisp, had visited Rome and Assisi that summer. He was so moved by this young man’s story that he knew our new patron saint had been found. Fr Mark brought us a relic from the Bishop of Assisi: a lock of Carlo’s hair, and work began to create a shrine. Local craftspeople created the box with the pyrographic inscription: ‘Non io, ma Dio’ (Not me, but God) that was to be the reliquary. A beautiful altar cloth was hand-sewn by parishioners, saving unnecessary expenditure on the shrine which is in the Lady Chapel of St Michael’s Church in Penn, Wolverhampton.
Now, imagine the delight of the ladies of Birmingham CWL Branch when they were the very first to make a pilgrimage to the completed shrine in March 2025. Our Branch Chaplain, Fr Alex Taylor, gave a talk about Carlo before we visited the shrine for a prayer service. There we recited the litany to Blessed Carlo and left our prayer requests. Everyone was deeply moved and we still talk of it.
Let’s hear more about this modern saint:
Carlo was born in London on 3rd May 1991 to affluent Italian parents, Antonia and Andrea. His parents didn’t practise their faith. In fact, his mother said that, before Carlo, she had only been to Mass for her First Communion, Confirmation and Wedding. Catholic tradition prevailed, so Carlo was baptised in Chelsea on May 18th. That September the family returned to Italy when Carlo’s parents returned to work for their thriving family businesses.
A nanny, who was Polish, was engaged for Carlo and instantly adored him. As he grew his curiosity about God and Catholic religious practices were answered by her. She taught him how to pray and never tired of his questions.
When four years old, Carlo was present when his maternal grandfather (his Nonno) received the Anointing of the Sick, shortly before he died. A few days later Carlo told his mother that his Nonno had appeared in a dream saying “I’m fine. I’m safe. But I need you to pray for me because I’m in Purgatory”. This was the first time Carlo was aware he could pray for souls in Purgatory, particularly through attending Mass, which he said was the most important prayer to help souls out of Purgatory. This experience deepened Carlo’s love for the Mass and his intense interest in the Catholic faith.
Carlo’s mother, seeing this fervent interest in the faith, wanted to help her 4-year-old son. A family friend advised her to seek guidance from Fr Ilio Carrai, known as the Padre Pio of Bologna. When Antonia met the priest, he greeted her, saying “I’ve waited for you for years (your son) will become famous in the Church and has been chosen by God for a special mission”.
Little did Antonia know the journey that would ensue.
Soon after this the family hired Rajesh, a Hindu immigrant from Mauritius, as housekeeper. Carlo and Rajesh formed a deep bond, and Rajesh went to Mass with Carlo. He was with him when Carlo prayed or watched cartoons based on Bible stories. Carlo taught Rajesh how to pray the Rosary and he joined the family each evening to pray.
Four years after first meeting Carlo, Rajesh was welcomed into the Catholic Church, receiving the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist, during Mass at the Acutis’ parish in 1999. He was in his late 30’s and Carlo 8yrs old.
Rajesh later reflected, “Carlo was for me a model of authentic Christian life and an unsurpassed moral role model. I accepted Baptism because he inspired and captivated me with his unshakable faith, great charity and purity. He knew the Catechism of the Catholic Church almost by heart and explained it so brilliantly that he managed to excite me about the importance of the sacraments… he used to tell me the importance of baptism and so many other things also. All those experiences changed my life. And I could see the living God.’’
Not long after, Rajesh’s mother visited from Mauritius. She listened to Carlo, who told her of Marian miracles, and was inspired to visit Lourdes. On her return to Mauritius she, also, was baptised.
When he was 7, Carlo yearned to receive the Eucharist. He was a patient boy but was finding it hard to wait for the customary age of 8 to receive his First Holy Communion. Carlo’s parents sought advice from Bishop Pasquale Macchi, who had worked with both Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II. When the bishop spoke with Carlo, he had no doubt that this boy possessed spiritual maturity and understanding of the Eucharist beyond his age. He therefore gave his recommendation for Carlo to receive Holy Communion, which he did just six weeks after his 7th birthday.
After this Carlo rarely missed daily Mass. He always tried, before or after Mass, to pray in front of the tabernacle to worship the Lord, ever present in the Blessed Sacrament. He said, “the Eucharist is the highway to Heaven.”
Assisi
When Carlo was aged 11, his parents bought a summer house in Assisi -here the family would often spend a couple of months a year. Carlo quickly fell in love with Assisi and with St Francis, who became his inspiration and spiritual teacher. Carlo would often begin his day with Mass at the Basilica of St Francis or the Basilica of St Clare and end with Eucharistic Adoration at the chapel St Francis had rebuilt in the 12th century. Despite growing up in a wealthy family, Carlo remained firmly detached from material possessions, always saving his money to help those in need, taking Tupperware dishes full of food to those living on the streets, helping in an orphanage and working in a soup kitchen.
At school his teachers described him as joyful, well-mannered, kind and generous with an amazing sense of humour. He had courage in standing up for the weak, the bullied and the disabled. He extolled the virtue of chastity, the importance of love for God and neighbour and the Eucharist.
Carlo’s greatest interest lay in the sciences, particularly computer science. By the time he began high school his gift for technology was apparent and he was considered a genius (or geek). He created a webpage for his parish and went on to create a website dedicated to cataloguing each reported Eucharistic miracle in the world, extraordinary events where the consecrated Host takes on the physical properties of flesh and blood.
He also maintained a list of the Marian apparitions recognised by the Catholic Church. This online exhibition grew to include over 150 events from around the world and throughout history. Carlo 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 Carlo’s death. Because he was in hospital Carlo was unable to attend the debut of his exhibition in Rome. His work has since been presented in thousands of places around the globe.
At the beginning of October 2006, Carlo developed an inflammation of the throat. His parents took him to a doctor, who diagnosed swollen glands and dehydration. A few days later, the teenager’s pain worsened, and he had blood in his urine. By Sunday, 8th October, he was too weak to get out of bed for Mass. His parents rushed him to hospital where he was given a devastating diagnosis. He had a rare and aggressive form of blood cancer, acute promyelocytic leukaemia, that progresses rapidly with little chance of recovery. Carlo was rushed to intensive care and put on a ventilator. After a sleepless night the chaplain was called to administer the Anointing of the Sick. Carlo’s suffering intensified yet he remained calm, peaceful and steadfast. He said: “I offer my sufferings to the Pope, for the Church, so as not to go to Purgatory and go straight to Heaven.” The doctors treating him asked him if he was in great pain, as they knew the excruciating pain he would have been in, to which he replied: “There are people who suffer much more than me.”
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.”
Carlo then fell into a coma. Sadly, he had suffered a catastrophic brain haemorrhage. Carlo was declared brain dead on 11th October and officially certified dead on 12th October 2006, at 6:45pm. He was 15 years old.
Shortly after she had buried her son, Antonia had a reassuring dream. St Francis of Assisi told her “Your son now occupies one of the highest places in Heaven. And after he is beatified, there will be a new generation of saints thanks to him.” Then Carlo appeared to her in a dream, saying “Mother, I will be beatified and a little later I will be canonised as a saint.” Several priests reported having dreams of Carlo in which he assured them that he had gone to heaven after his death. He appeared in another of his mother’s dreams saying that she shouldn’t worry as she would become a mother again. She considers it a miracle that she gave birth to twins on the fourth anniversary of Carlo’s death.
The call for Carlo’s beatification began shortly after his death. On 12th October 2012, the sixth anniversary of his death, the Archdiocese of Milan opened his cause for canonisation. On 5th July 2018 Pope Francis declared Carlo Venerable. On 6th April 2019 Carlo’s body was moved to the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Assisi, thereby fulfilling his wish to be buried in the home town of his beloved St Francis and St Clare.
One thing was needed for Carlo to be proclaimed Blessed: a miracle
.A miracle that was medically inexplicable, instantaneous, complete, lasting and clearly attributed to his intercession. In Brazil, on the seventh anniversary of Carlo’s death, Luciana Vianna had taken her 6 year old son, Mattheus, to Mass. He suffered from a congenital pancreatic disorder which made eating difficult. Beforehand, she had prayed a novena asking for Carlo’s intercession. During the prayer service following Mass, Mattheus kissed the clothing relic of Carlo Acutis and asked that he should not “throw up as much”. Immediately, he told his mother that he felt healed and when they arrived home asked for solid foods – he had been on an all-liquid diet. His doctors subsequently confirmed a normal appearing pancreas by ultrasound. Pope Francis formally recognised the miracle in February 2020, after years of meticulous and scientific examination by the Church. Carlo was beatified on 10th October 2020 at the Basilica of St Francis in Assisi.
On 23 May 2024 Pope Francis recognised a second miracle.
In July 2022 Valeria Valverde, a 21-year-old woman from Costa Rica, severely injured her head in a bicycle accident in Florence, nearly dying as a result. She underwent an emergency craniotomy, and her condition was very critical; she could die at any moment. Six days after the accident, Valeria’s mother went to Assisi to pray for her daughter’s healing at the grave of Blessed Carlo Acutis. That same day, Valeria began to breathe on her own again, and the next day her upper limbs and partial speech were restored. Ten days later, Valeria was discharged from intensive care and underwent further examinations, which revealed that the bruising in her brain had completely disappeared. Contrary to medical predictions, Valeria needed only one week of physical therapy, and on September 2nd, 2022, two months after her accident, she celebrated being completely healed with her mother at the grave of Blessed Carlo Acutis in Assisi.
Two significant miracles, recognised by the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, signalled that Carlo could then be elevated to sainthood.
Before he died in April 2025, Pope Francis “fervently pushed the Acutis sainthood case forward, convinced that the church needed someone like him to attract young Catholics to the faith while addressing the promises and perils of the digital age.” Sadly, Pope Francis died shortly before the scheduled date of the ceremony, and it was Pope Leo XIV who canonised Carlo only five months later than originally planned.
About a million pilgrims visited Carlo’s glass tomb in Assisi last year, and “more people are on track to visit it in 2025.” Devotion to him continues to grow. People of all ages are drawn to him. His life was marked by joy and a profound love for God and neighbour and complete surrender to the will of God.
Some quotes from Carlo:
I am happy to die because I have lived my life without wasting a minute on those things which do not please God.
Continuously ask your guardian angel for help. Your guardian angel has to become your best friend.
Do not be afraid because with the Incarnation of Jesus, death becomes life, and there’s no need to escape: in eternal life, something extraordinary awaits us.
All people are born as originals, but many die as photocopies.
The more Eucharist we receive, the more we will become like Jesus, so that on earth we will have a foretaste of heaven.
To always be close to Jesus, that’s my life plan.
Our soul is like a hot air balloon. If by chance there is a mortal sin, the soul falls to the ground. Confession is like the fire underneath the balloon enabling the soul to rise again. . . It is important to go to confession often.
Sadness is looking at ourselves, happiness is looking towards God.
Our goal must be infinite, not the finite. The infinite is our homeland. Heaven has been waiting for us forever.
The Eucharist is the highway to heaven.
Carlo’s mother tells us, “The path he took is available to all of us.” She also said: “(Carlo) 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 centre of his life.”
Let us pray, asking for St Carlo’s intercession
O God our Father, we thank you for giving us Carlo,
a model of life for young people, and a message of love for all.
You made him fall in love with your son Jesus,
making the Eucharist his ‘highway to heaven’.
You gave him Mary as a beloved mother,
and you made him, through the Rosary, a cantor of her tenderness.
Receive his prayer for us.
Look above all upon the poor whom he loved and assisted.
Grant me too, through his intercession, the grace that I need. AMEN
