In a digital age where millions of people follow Pope Francis on Twitter, the Church may soon have the first ‘tech geek’ saint in a 15-year-old boy who died of Leukaemia.
Carlo Acutis (pictured), who was fiercely passionate about computers and animals, died in Milan in 2006. However, friends say his first love was God and the Virgin Mary. They describe a short and devoted Christian life marked by devotion to the rosary, daily Mass and Eucharistic adoration.
He is described as having an incredible capacity to study and develop computer programmes – a passion which never distracted him from helping the poor and the vulnerable through various voluntary organisations.
“The Eucharist: My Road to Heaven” was a sentence he frequently uttered and has become a book which tells of his experiences. It recounts how he faced illness with courage reminding his family and friends that there were people who suffered much more than him.
According to Francesca Consolini from the Offices for the Causes of Saints in the Milan archdiocese, he “was not ashamed to share his convictions with others. But those people would not make fun of him, because they understood that his convictions were real, they came from inside him. It wasn’t something artificial that should be made fun of.”
