Blessed Carlo Acutis
Elegy to the Patron Saint of the Internet. Just because (this is my Personal Blog after all)
A couple days ago I prostrated myself before the altar of Blessed Carlo Acutis.
It was a Saturday and a hot one; I was in London, walking the streets round about where I live. I decided to venture into a Catholic church, one I had passed by countless times before without ever paying notice. Churches are a cool and calm escape from sweating streets on a sunny day – I believe this is what I had in mind. Crucially, I am currently unemployed or rather “between jobs”, which sounds nicer, and for this reason, I had nothing better to do. I was also having a bad day, nothing serious, just the kind caused by going on the phone too early in the morning which, for me anyway, is never a good thing to do – more often than not it casts this dark cloud of mental unrest and rumination over the subsequent waking hours. Churches can be a good place to go if you’re seeking to quiet the rats-cage of the mind. I don’t even think this has anything to do with the God stuff, it’s just nice. I’m told that getting a job and spending less time being aimless and thinking about yourself can also help with this.
Upon entering the church, I was greeted by a small, tiny man who was arranging flyers on the table in the entrance hall. He had nice twinkly eyes, which were the first thing I noticed as he approached me, along with the fact that he was really actually tiny. He said, “You must be here to visit the shrine dedicated to Blessed Carlo Acutis”, and naturally I replied, “Yes”. In actuality, this was no word of a lie – no doubt that I had been subconsciously and spiritually called to this church for a reason. As it so happens, Carlo Acutis is only my favourite ever Catholic saint – he the GOAT. Not that I’m a devout Catholic or anything, or religious at all for that matter.1 Rather, it’s that Carlo Acutis is the patron saint of the internet – I’m obsessed with the concept of the Catholic Church having a patron saint of the internet. It was thus by strange and complete chance that I found myself in a church dedicated to my favourite ever saint, a cult figure in my imagination. Recognised as the first millennial saint and referred to by some as “God’s influencer”, Carlo Acutis, as the tiny man informed me, was in fact baptised in this very church. For this reason the parish is devoted to him. As the tiny man ushered me in through the great big double doors, the pearly gates into the nave, he asked me whether I would be interested in joining the Carlo Acutis Youth Appreciation Group – a congregation of like-minded young people who convene on Wednesday evenings to discuss the life and work of Blessed Carlo Acutis. I told him I would think about it – I am between jobs after all.
I remember first reading Carlo’s story in the news circa 2020 when his beatification propelled him to niche (Catholic) media stardom. It's an incredibly sad but heart-warming one. Born on 3rd May 1991 (Taurus, which explains a lot) in London to Italian parents who were working there at the time, Carlo moved back home to Milan with his family later that same year (and luckily so because if not I highly doubt he would have become a saint and probably would have become a roadman instead). He was raised in Milan and, despite neither of his parents being religious, he demonstrated an extraordinary zeal for the Lord Christ from a very early age. As a small child, he never wanted to pass a church without going in to “say hello to Jesus”; at his own request, in 1998 he received his First Holy Communion early and from thereon attended mass daily. Carlo’s inspirational piety eventually led his heretic parents to return to the faith – he literally saved them. This being said, he was a normal kid – he loved football, video games (although he only allowed himself to play them for one hour a week), action movies, Pokémon, aliens and animals (he had four dogs, two cats and many goldfish as pets). Above all, however, he had a passion for the Eucharist (Holy Communion, the Blessed Sacrament and the Lord's Supper i.e., the spiritual eating of the body and blood of Christ). Following his confirmation at the age of eleven, he began visiting sites of Eucharistic miracles around the world and documenting them. It is worth mentioning that, alongside this, he also did the Lord’s work in the traditional sense, helping children, the elderly, refugees, and the homeless. By age fourteen he compiled all his miraculous discoveries into a website so that the wonders of Christ might be accessible to all via cyberspace – he believed that if people knew that Jesus was truly in the Eucharist, they would turn to God. It is thus that he was later dubbed a “computer genius” by the church (I doubt Catholic church officials know anything about computers themselves therefore I don’t think he was an actual computer genius, not like in an Alan Turing way, respectfully).
In October 2006, at the age of fifteen Carlo became ill with flu – or so it was thought until his condition deteriorated. He was admitted to hospital where he was eventually diagnosed with leukaemia and told he had days to live. Carlo bore the news with grace, immediately offering up all his sufferings, like a true martyr, to the Pope, the Church, and his direct entry into heaven (he had a horror of purgatory). “I am happy to die,” he said, “because I have lived my life without wasting a minute on those things which do not please God.” He died on 12th October. (This is also his feast day.) Carlo’s mother has said that God chose Carlo to be “an example for the young people of this period in history.” I know that for me anyway, he is certainly a big inspiration, generally speaking (for obvious reasons) but also specifically when it comes to reflecting on my use of the internet. In a not so dissimilar way to Carlo Acutis, I want my digital footprint to be a force for good in this world, and a way of communing with something a higher and outside of myself. This is precisely why I am so into blogging and shitposting – it’s pretty much the closest you can get to God in this economy.
Pope Francis once described the internet as a “gift from God”, hailing the way in which it “offers immense possibilities for encounter and solidarity”. He praised its ability to promote community and Interfaith dialogue, thereby “creating a sense of the unity of the human family." Like any responsible adult, he of course side noted its pitfalls - the dangers of getting stuck inside online echo chambers, how social media can easily lead to isolation etc. His final conclusion, however, withheld that:
"While these drawbacks are real, they do not justify rejecting social media."
Ultimately,
"The digital world can be an environment rich in humanity."
I have certainly found this to be true, but I wonder how the Pope knows this. I wonder if he is part of any Subreddit forums, if he follows any dank meme pages on Instagram, if he has ever built a house on Minecraft, or decorated an igloo on Club Penguin. Throwback to last year when that AI-generated picture of the Pope pimped out in a Balenciaga puffer jacket went viral and everyone was convinced it was real – a landmark moment in the rise of generative AI and deepfakery. Throwback even further to 2020 when someone discovered that Pope’s official Instagram account had “accidentally” liked a photo of a half-naked lingerie-clad Brazilian bikini model (her name is Natalia Garibotto - not that she needs my feeble shoutout since she is very famous and, according to IMDb, millions of people across the world are fans of her work). Unsurprisingly, the Vatican got all up in arms about it, denying that the Pope could have had anything to do with it, demanding that Instagram launch an investigation into what must have been a glitch in the system. Ironically, this incident was an indirect example of the aforementioned ‘humanity’ contained within the digital world, although presumably not the kind the Pope was referring to.
Blessed Carlo Acutis has never unwittingly liked a boob pic on Instagram. He would never. He famously said:
“The Virgin Mary is the only woman in my life.”
Another of his one-liners is:
“All people are born as originals, but many die as photocopies.”
Which I think is exceptionally poignant.
I’m into Catholicism in this ironic, trolling way that is typical of lots of wanna be edgy people these days - it is obviously dumb and wholly unoriginal, also hard to explain if you’re not already familiar with the vibe. This is the underlying context of this whole post. I don’t even care. I will try write about the phenomenon properly soon.
You have such a lucid and ebullient prose style; I love it. And real intrigue. Thank you <3
i'm putting him on my shrine, he also has the same birthday as me