A Computer-Guy for Jesus

There was a time our “age” was dubbed the “digital age”, a name which has disappeared into oblivion, thanks to the Gen- wave of names: Gen Z, Gen Alpha, Gen Beta… and they keep coming, but back to the “digital age” part: the last couple of decades have seen us through so many rapid technological advancements. It feels like it was only yesterday when the Post Office was a thing, yet now many people don’t even know where the Post Office is!

With all this easing of communication, access to information, and the creation of a “global village”, a new question has surfaced: how does one become a saint in our digital times? No doubt, the many technological advancements have brought with them many merits, but in their shadow is the prevalence of many forms of sin. Pornography, detraction and slander, cyber-bullying, misinformation, grooming, laziness, individualism, theft are only a few of the evils that can be accessed or orchestrated with just a few clicks these days.

The Christian mentality, however, asserts that if God has allowed something—however strange, horrible, insane, or even diabolical it may be—then he has some way of making saints of us through and by means of it. The Cross of Christ is the most perfect realization of this mystery!

While many would give themselves good reasons to excuse themselves from all the risks associated with the new technologies, a young Italian boy, way back in the early 2000’s, decided to make use of the internet for evangelization.

St Carlo Acutis was born in London, May 3, 1991, to wealthy parents who were not devout in their practice of the Faith. He grew up in Milan, Italy, where his family had moved. His mother confessed that before Carlo was born, she had only gone to Mass for her First Holy Communion, Confirmation and her wedding. “I was caught up in the culture of our time,” she said. “I was a prisoner of everything that is relative and limited.”

The young Carlo couldn’t have been more different. He yearned to practice his faith and find out more about it. When his parents could not answer his questions, he turned to his Polish babysitter, who taught him all she knew.

He received his First Holy Communion at the early age of seven, after excelling in a test conducted by the archbishop. From that time, he attended Mass daily, frequented Confession, and grew in a great devotion to the Blessed Mother, and to the saints like St Francis of Assisi.

When he was home, he was a jolly, good-natured boy who loved computers, video games (Pokémon was his favorite), football, action movies, and pets. Many times, he volunteered to work with the needy in the area and used his allowance to buy blankets and hot drinks for the poor during winter.

At school, Carlo was intelligent and very disciplined and would not hesitate to protect his fellow students from bullies. When it happened that one of his friends was going through a tough time because their parents were divorcing, Carlo would invite them to his home to support and console them. He was never happy when his classmates misbehaved, and responded by admonishing them, especially about preserving purity.

All accounts agree that Carlo loved nothing more than the Eucharist. Every time he happened to pass by a Church, he wouldn’t miss to go in and “say hello to Jesus”. This great love and devotion to the Eucharistic Lord moved him to learn about the Eucharistic miracles, and he asked his parents to take him on pilgrimages to the places where these miracles had occurred.

A self-made computer geek, he bought manuals and taught himself computer programming. He didn’t learn this skill for its own sake; he intended to put it at the service of his Lord. The result was a website dedicated to documenting the Eucharistic Miracles around the world.

“The Eucharist is the highway to heaven,” he said, and he wanted everyone to know about this highway. To him, the internet, that place to which everyone, anywhere in the world has access, was the best place to talk about Jesus and how he is really present in the Eucharist.

Carlo was not yet even fifteen when he did all this! According to his mother, he seemed to have had the premonition that he would die young, and that is why he did whatever he could for the Lord with haste.

In October 2006, the young Carlo was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia. He took the news calmly and offered up his pain and sufferings for the Pope (Pope Benedict XVI at the time) and the Church. “I am happy to die because I have lived my life without wasting a minute on those things which do not please God,” he said.

On October 12, 2006, aged fifteen, Carlo died and was buried in Assisi at his request, owing to his great love for St Francis of Assisi. The cause for his canonization was introduced only a few years afterward (in 2013) and following the approval of a miracle attributed to his intercession by Pope Francis, he was beatified (declared Blessed) in Assisi on October 10, 2020.

Now his body is exposed for public veneration in the Chapel of the Renunciation in the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Assisi. It was in this place that St Francis of Assis historically stripped himself of all his father’s possessions, including his clothes, to fully embrace poverty. Now, in the same place and for the first time, the faithful get to see a teenage saint dressed in jeans, a pair of Nikes and a casual sports jacket (relics have taken quite the turn!)

The Body of St Carlo Acutis; Santa Maria Maggiore church in Assisi, southern nave (2020); Wikimedia Commons

To always be close to Jesus, that’s my life plan.

In every age, God raises up saints as beacons, as reminders, as proofs that it is possible to be holy and to become saints, even when this vision has become obscure and the idea of it beat down amid a fast-changing world; even despite our sinful and limited nature.

St Carlo Acutis’ path to holiness did not stop him from enjoying technology, the internet, friendship, family life or his childhood and youth. In fact, it became a sanctification and fuller realization of these dimensions of his life. God gave him his mission within the things he was passionate about, and Carlo cooperated with the Grace given him, becoming the young boy who, using his unique and yet ordinary gifts, sought after God’s own heart and—no doubt—found it.

Where there was a love for computer programming, God also inspired the desire and the mission to spread devotion to the Eucharist using the internet. In light of St Carlo, many of our usual hangups about the internet and technology give way to the knowledge that it can be used for higher purposes, for serving God and neighbor.

Indeed, even when he wasn’t using his computer to talk about God, he still showed a peculiar sanctity in how he used it for his recreation. It is not immediately evident how playing a video game can be a holy pastime; Carlo knew there was a danger of the video games replacing his chores and duties to those around him, so he restricted himself to playing video games only one hour a week! This sort of holiness is not far from any of us who find ourselves called to holiness in Carlo’s age.

“Carlo taught me to live in my century while turning towards eternity,” Carlo’s mother recalled. It was their young son’s faith that brought back Carlo’s parents to the practice of the faith. Carlo can teach us too, to live holy lives in our century. God has placed us here for a reason; it is not by mistake that we were born in the digital age.

What does it matter if you can win a thousand battles if you cannot win against your own passions? It does not matter. The real battle is with ourselves.

God wants us to be saints in our own time: now! He wants us to show the world that the internet, technology, social media, video games, movies, all the common fare of our generation, can be, and should be means to sainthood. It takes each one of us, strongly bound to Jesus in the Eucharist, our Lady and the saints, to make it so.

In 2024, Pope Francis approved a second miracle attributed to the intercession of St Carlo Acutis. He was canonized on 7 September, 2025 by Pope Leo XIV (together with St Pier Giorgio Frassati); the first millennial saint. He is the patron saint of the internet.

St Carlo Acutis’ feast day is October 12.

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