Carlo Acutis
Carlo Acutis was born in London in May 1991 to Italian parents who moved to Milan four months later. He grew into an exceptionally talented youth, regarded by his peers as a computer geek. Sadly he died of leukaemia on 12 October 2006, aged 15 years.
Apparently Carlo had a cheerful demeanour and, having once been bullied, he tried to help other young boys in the same position. He was well liked and an inspiration to other youngsters. He was very religious and used his computer skills to prepare a website dedicated to cataloguing each reported “Eucharistic miracle” in the world and maintaining a list of the approved “Marian apparitions” of the Roman Catholic Church.
Not long after Carlo’s death there was a call for him to be beatified. On 12 October 2012, the sixth anniversary of his death, the Archdiocese of Milan opened the Cause for Canonisation. In 2019 his body was exhumed and placed in a church at Assisi to be venerated by the “faithful”. He was beatified by Pope Francis on 10 October 2020, and in 2022 it was claimed a woman with a serious brain haemorrhage was cured through Carlo’s intercession. A boy born with a serious pancreatic defect was also said to have been miraculously cured due to Carlo. His canonisation was consequently approved in July this year and he will be declared a saint at a date as yet unannounced.
In August 2024 in Walsingham, Norfolk, a service was attended by 1500 to 2000 people where a sliver of Carlo’s pericardium (the sac that surrounds the heart) was paraded. As his parents are still alive, their permission was needed for this Roman Catholic charade, of a religious relic to be removed from his body. This will now tour the world. The throng of worshippers in Walsingham joined a procession through country lanes before queueing for up to two hours to have the golden reliquary, containing the sliver of tissue visible through glass, pressed to their foreheads by priests as they prayed for healing or blessing. A lock of the boy’s hair was presented to the Basilica of Our Lady of Walsingham (where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared in 1061) and will remain there.
The reports of Carlo’s life show him to have been very devout. Many of his recorded comments refer to the Lord Jesus as his inspiration, rather than
to Mary as is so often the case with Roman Catholics. We do not know this boy’s eternal state, but we do know that Roman Catholicism does not teach the true way of salvation. We also know that the saints in glory are not hearing the prayers of misguided sinners on this earth, but are adoring and worshipping the Hearer of prayer, the only Mediator and Intercessor, their Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ.
It has been said that the Church of Rome is Satan’s masterpiece; its theatre, mumbo jumbo, and fraud are pleasing to the father of lies because they draw attention and devotion away from the only true Object of faith, the One who is the way, the truth and the life. FRD