A few months ago, some friends and I went to see the movie “Roadmap to Reality,” a great film about Carlo Acutis, the first millennial Catholic saint. I’m fascinated and inspired by the young man who was an ordinary teenager and yet became the perfect role model for today’s generation. In fact, he is often called “God’s Influencer” and in today’s world of even the youngest of kids living on tablets and phones, his story is one everyone should learn about.
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Proof that holiness and high-speed internet can peacefully coexist came to fruition today when Acutis was officially canonized by Pope Leo before thousands in Rome’s St. Peter’s Square. For all you non-Catholics out there, canonization is the official last step to sainthood. It follows his beatification by Pope Francis in 2020 when huge crowds watched the ceremony on giant LED screens that he would have loved to configure. Today’s ceremony comes a little more than a month after more than a million young people filled Rome for the 2025 Jubilee of Youth and is a heavenly sent date for the first influencer saint.
Acutis was born in London but his family soon moved to Italy and he was raised in Milan. He loved soccer and wore his favorite Nikes everywhere but was diagnosed with leukemia and died at age 15 in October of 2005. But, in his short life, he influenced many and his “digital evangelization” changed hearts and minds worldwide. He is buried in Assisi, home of one of his favorite saints and mine, St. Francis, and is appropriately dressed in his beloved sneakers, a sports jersey, and jeans. This “Saint in Sneakers” was influenced by many including, appropriately, former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, whose wisdom struck a chord with young Carlo when he said, “Your time is limited so don’t waste it living the life of someone else.”
For Acutis, information and technology should be seen as tools to share good news, to connect, and to do good. His goal was for us to use technology to lead toward truth and hope and to promote faith rather than undermine it all while not being controlled or manipulated by it. As the “Catholic Star Herald” wrote, Carlo also knew that a deep spirituality on the inside is the secret to a serene, consistent, and joyful disposition on the outside. He exemplified the inner beauty we all strive for and was a great person of holiness inside and out as he helped beggars, the disabled, immigrants, and the elderly.
“Why do people worry so much about their physical beauty but not about the beauty of their souls?” he often asked. As today’s teens, particularly females, struggle with online comparison and bullying, this question is not only timely but pure wisdom. “Happiness is looking towards God and sadness is looking towards yourself” he said as well as “Money is only ragged paper. What counts in life is the nobility of the soul and the way one loves God and loves one’s neighbor.” This vision from a saint that encourages young people not to settle for something beneath their dignity is truly a perfect example of someone who was wise beyond his years and who used modern technology for a good effect without wasting time or being distracted.
Other than his adeptness with technology and putting faith at our fingertips, Acutis also had a deep love for the Eucharist. When he noticed that Google featured more gossip than Gospel, he created a slick website that mapped Eucharistic miracles and Marian apparitions into one easy-to-use searchable site. Today that home-grown project has become a multilingual portal used by catechists, youth ministers, and others on every continent. At a time when many of his contemporaries were walking away from Mass, Acutis had the ultimate respect for the Body of Christ saying, “The Eucharist is my motorway to heaven.”
Ceremonies for Acutis’ official canonization haven’t been met without delay. His beatification ceremony was postponed due to the 2020 pandemic and his canonization was delayed for the papal funeral of Pope Francis. As with anything that’s meant to be however, it’s all come to be.
Today also marks the opening of the animated film, “Carlo Acutis: God’s Influencer,” which offers children and family to learn about his life and evangelization.
Acutis is the example young people need today and his canonization coincidentally comes at a time when young Americans are entering the Catholic Church in great numbers, an example being the more than 400 currently preparing to enter the Catholic Church at Texas A&M University’s St. Mary’s Center. It indeed appears that the Church is entering a period of renewed growth with more Americans joining the Catholic Church than leaving it for the first time in decades. Just as Acutis is considered a “cool” saint, Catholicism has become cool. Maybe it’s our new American Pope, maybe it’s an awakening, maybe it’s all divine intervention.
This “sacred surge” in the numbers of aspiring Catholics registering to join the church is led by a growing number of young adults, particularly those in their teens and 20s, who are defying decades of declining religious affiliation. It seems Gen Z and Millennials are seeking purpose, authenticity, meaning, normalcy, and tradition in an increasingly chaotic and confusing world. Driven by the pandemic, the highs and lows of the internet, and lax and questionable alternatives being offered, today’s younger generation is simply finding something beautiful and transcendent about the rituals and ancient history in Catholicism, its doctrines, and the mass.
According to the National Catholic Register, some dioceses are reporting increases of 30-70 percent in new converts and much of it is being driven by young men, who are now statistically more religious than young women. C’mon ladies! And America is not alone. The Catholic boom is also happening in France, which saw a 45 percent increase in the number of adult baptisms this year. In England, a surge in Mass attendance is resulting in Catholics outnumbering Anglicans for the first time since the Church of England was born while Austria is reporting an 85 percent increase in adult baptisms. The same is happening in Canada, Belgium, and Sweden.
All of this would be music to Carlo Acutis’ ears and would undoubtedly make him smile. Maybe today, and every day, take a minute to put faith at your fingertips as you scroll and post.
Also being beatified today is Peir Giorgio Frassati who, like Acutis, was an Italian young man who has been a global patron for young adults, athletes, and “ordinary people.” Frassati saw many parallels between Catholic life and his favorite sport, mountain-climbing. It was in nature that he connected most deeply with God and his simple quote, “Verson L’Alto,” which means “to the heights,” encapsulates his philosophy of mountaineering and his Catholic outlook on life and adventure. Frassati died in 1925 at the age of 24 but like him, we are called to go “to the heights” to encounter Christ and love in all things.
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