To thunderous applause Pope Leo last weekend declared two young Italian men to be saints of the Catholic Church, writes Father James Conlon, pictured above, Pastor of Saint Francis of Assisi in Ann Arbor, September 10. In many ways such declarations are quite common in the life of the Church and yet the raising of these two young men, Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati, to the rank of canonized saint was equally quite extraordinary. Although it was originally planned to canonize them separately as part of the Jubilee Year celebrations, a plan later changed due to the sudden death of Pope Francis, this double canonization seemed so appropriate, given their age and what united them in their lives of faith. Although born almost 100 years apart they were united in one faith and one hope founded on Christ.
My own interest in Carlo Acutis really began in early 2023 when on a pilgrimage to Italy with the students from Father Gabriel Richard High School in Ann Arbor, we visited the town of Assisi. I had heard of Carlo Acutis before but never taken any real interest in his story or what he might be able to teach me about my life of faith. Assisi changed all that! There we had the great privilege of meeting with Carlo’s mother, pictured above, hearing her speak so eloquently and lovingly about her son and where I received a first-class relic.
There we visited his tomb in the old cathedral and to the surprise of many we saw a young man laid out in the silent sleep of death, pictured below, dressed not in robes or vestments but in jeans and sneakers! He seemed so natural, so alive that at any moment he would wake and join us for a cappuccino! He had a beauty and serenity that even overcame the reality of death.
To be honest, I initially tend to think of the saints as belonging to past generations – older men and women who have lived lives of faith or died as martyrs, so the very idea of a young man, a contemporary of our world, doing the things that we do – using computers, kicking ball, watching movies was both surprising and challenging. What was it about the short life of this young man to warrant this declaration of sanctity? I had to know more!
With his relic in hand, I was determined to learn about Carlo and his short life. Yes, it was short, he died at the young age of 15 from leukemia, but it was equally jam packed with all that would make anyone a saint – a life of deep daily prayer, devotion to the Eucharist and Sacraments and a fearless desire to share his Catholic faith with others, beginning with those closest to him, his own family and friends. Often dubbed “God’s influencer” due to his computers skills and his work in creating a website to record Eucharistic miracles, for me he would become the epitome of what it is to be a disciple of Christ in our modern world, using our modern resources to share our faith.
Like Pier Giorgio, Carlo’s short life was a litany of small hidden and yet concrete gestures and charitable actions in what Pope Francis once described as “a holiness found in our neighbors.” And like Pier Giorgio, who died from polio at the age of 24, when illness struck and cut short his life he too did not retreat into self-pity or fear but continued to offer himself to God and to live each day with thanksgiving and hope. For both men, God was the beginning and the end – as Pier Giorgio once wrote “if you have God at the center of all your actions, then you will reach the end.”
In his homily, Pope Leo invited all of us to follow the example of these two ordinary and yet extraordinary men – to love Christ in the Eucharist, to develop a deep devotion to the saints to see Christ in the poor and needy. In the official words of the declaration of sainthood, the Holy Father pronounced that this act of proclaiming these two young men who lived almost a hundred years apart to be saints, was to the honor of the Blessed Trinity, the exaltation of the Catholic faith and the increase of the Christian life.
I suspect that while both men had a deep desire for ultimate union with God, neither ever thought of themselves as future canonized saints with feast days and collects, honored with devotion throughout the Church. They simply lived humble lives of intentional faith- taking the teachings of Christ and his Church and applying them to their events of their daily lives. This is what is ultimately encouraging for me: as Pope Leo remarked in his homily this is “the simple but winning formula of their holiness – the type of witness we are called to follow in order to enjoy life to the full and to meet the Lord in feast of heaven.”
Saint Pier Giorgio Frassati, pray for us.
Saint Carlo Acutis, pray for us.
