Assisi, the medieval Italian town revered as the home of Saints Francis and Clare, is experiencing a new wave of pilgrim fervour.
The focus of this burgeoning devotion? Carlo Acutis, a millennial teenager set to be canonised on April 27.
For many young pilgrims, Carlo, who was born in London, offers a relatable path to holiness.
"St. Francis, St. Clare, of course, important saints who marked an epoch – but that’s far removed from today’s teens," observed Maria Rosario Riccio, chaperoning a youth group from southern Italy.
"Carlo is like the kids. He’s a near-saint of our time, who can show teens that it’s possible to love Jesus while being a regular youth."
Ms Riccio's group, along with hundreds of others, visited the Santuario della Spogliazione (also known as Santa Maria Maggiore), the very spot where St. Francis renounced his worldly possessions centuries ago. Inside, they prayed at Carlo’s tomb, where his body, clad in jeans, a sweatshirt, and sneakers, lies on view.
The scene reflected a diverse array of visitors, from priests and nuns to families with teenagers, all drawn to the young man who died of leukaemia in 2006 at the age of 15.
The outpouring of devotion has surprised even Assisi's bishop, the Rev. Domenico Sorrentino. He described the scene as a "volcano of grace erupting", noting the stark contrast to the relative obscurity of the Santuario della Spogliazione just two decades prior.
What was once a "forgotten" church next to his residence is now a vibrant center of pilgrimage, thanks to the inspiring story of Carlo.
Over the last year, more than a million pilgrims paid homage to the teen, Rev. Sorrentino said, drawn by “his smiling way of living our faith”.
Carlo’s happy image, usually in a red polo shirt and carrying a backpack, is as popular in souvenir shops across town as Francis in his simple brown habit.
One store owner picked up a blessed icon the first time she went to the shrine and keeps it glued to her cash register.
“I was really curious about this new saint who attracts youth,” Silvia Balducci said.
Both the church and his family describe Carlo as an exceptionally devout but otherwise regular Italian boy, who is working miracles after his untimely death precisely by drawing youth to faith when most of his contemporaries are abandoning organised religion.
“Carlo wasn’t an alien, he was a normal person. But if it’s illuminated by the light of Christ, a life becomes extraordinary,” his mother, Antonia Salzano Acutis, said.
“We always pray to the saints, and in the end, what did saints do? They opened the doors of their lives to Christ.”
She quoted one of her son’s favorite phrases: “Everyone is born an original, but many die photocopies.
“The saint is one who didn’t die like a photocopy, who realised that project of holiness that God established in eternity for each of us, as we all should,” she said.
Not an observant Catholic herself when she had him, Ms Acutis used to joke with her husband that their young son was “a little Buddha” because of his unselfishness, attention to others, and cheerful obedience.
He developed a precocious interest in faith, such as wanting to enter every church to “say hi” to Jesus and Mary. Later, he started attending Mass, adoring the Blessed Sacrament and praying the rosary daily – while also entertaining with jokes his friends who were less interested in religion and more into going to nightclubs with their girlfriends and smoking an occasional joint.
“This was a bit of a way of hiding his faith life, because Carlo knew that his friends couldn’t understand,” his mother said. “But Carlo was a witness, a silent witness through the value of friendship, through the value of generosity, helping his classmates in school, defending the teens who were bullied.”
Carlo often helped the homeless and was uninterested in the trappings common for a wealthy child in Milan, one of Europe’s fashion and business capitals. He asked his parents to donate to the poor what they would have spent for a second pair of sneakers for him, and insisted he wanted to teach catechism at his parish instead of going on skiing holidays at fancy resorts like his peers.
That denial of privilege is a parallel with St. Francis, to whom Carlo was so devoted that he asked to be buried in Assisi, said the Rev. Enzo Fortunato, who spent most of his religious career there and heads the pontifical committee for World Children’s Day.
“And there are more similarities with St. Francis. St. Francis left the churches and went to the squares to preach. Carlo Acutis prophetically realised that today the public squares are online, on the Web,” Rev. Fortunato said. “That’s where youth are, that’s where people are, so he lives and brings the Gospel in those squares. That’s one of the reasons why he will become the patron of the web, Internet and social media.”
Particularly devout to the eucharist and wanting to share the Catholic belief that Jesus is literally present in it, Carlo created an online exhibit about miracles where the bread and wine became flesh and blood throughout the centuries. It’s been used in thousands of parishes worldwide, his mother said.
For her, his being “a bridge to Jesus” — even in his terminal illness, which he faced without complaining, certain of eternal life — is a more important legacy than any miracles or supernatural signs.
To become a saint, however, miracles do need to be attested. One in Carlo’s canonisation process was the healing of a Costa Rican student from a bicycle accident in Italy after her mother prayed to him, Rev. Sorrentino said.
Sabina Falcetta goes often to Carlo’s shrine from the nearby city of Perugia with a group of fellow mothers to pray for their children.
“Carlo Acutis gives us peace,” she said. “Most importantly he gives us the certainty that God is a good father. And you can’t ask for more.”
As she talked outside the sanctuary, a Confirmation group from Lake Garda in northern Italy was praying in a circle by a cutout of Carlo in his jeans and backpack standing by a larger-than-life monstrance.
One of the catechists, Veronica Abraham, said she had been teaching about both St. Francis and Carlo, focusing on the teen’s charity and his custom of sitting down to chat with anyone who looked lonely, “since even a ciao is important for those who are alone”.
Her son Mario Girardi, 13, said he was really struck by the fact that Acutis – when only a couple of years older than him – “spoke with everyone, didn’t let anything bother him but helped everyone”.
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