Who is blessed Carlo Acutis: Biography

The Carlo Acutis Foundation, with great emotion, announces that His Holiness Pope Francis has declared that, on the occasion of the Jubilee for Adolescents, Blessed Carlo Acutis will be canonized on April 27, 2025.

Blessed Carlo Acutis

There are lives that flow, seemingly normal. And then there are exceptional lives. What is most surprising about Carlo’s story is how he managed to be profoundly original: offering everyone who knew him the portrait of an exceptionally smiling normality.

Carlo was a boy like any other, and at the same time, he did extraordinary things. Without apparent effort, without any contradiction. He played the saxophone and, still very young, taught catechism to children. He played soccer with his friends, and an hour later, he would be volunteering at the soup kitchen of the Capuchins and Mother Teresa’s nuns for the poor.

Details

He had fun with video games, and at the same time, he used the internet to do apostolic works. He watched detective shows and made films with his dogs and cats, and he helped the less fortunate in the neighborhood. He designed computer programs and helped other children with homework difficulties.

Enlightened,animated by an extraordinary faith that he had lived deeply since childhood. This made him an example capable of involving and inspiring others to action. Today, the Carlo Acutis Foundation seeks to enhance his testimony and moral and spiritual legacy, in line with the timeless values that young Carlo had been taught at home, which have always been part of a family history and are now translated on a broader scale by the Foundation’s social action.

Timeline

1991

1995

1997

1998

2003

2005

2006

2007

2012

2013

2016

2018

2019

2020

2024

1991

Carlo was born in the Portland Clinic in London. On 18 May, he received the Sacrament of Baptism in Our Lady of Dolours Church. On 8 September 1991 Carlo returned to Milan with his parents.

1995

Carlo attended the local Parco Pagani nursery school in Milan.

“Everyone is born as an original, but many die as a photocopy”

Carlo Acutis

1997

In September, he started primary school at the San Carlo Institute; three months later, for practical reasons, he was moved to the Tommaseo Institute, run by the Sisters of Saint Marcellina, where he remained for the whole of his primary and lower secondary education.

1998

On 16 June, in Perego, he received his First Communion at the Convent of the Romite Sisters of Saint Ambrose.

2003

On 24 May, he received the Sacrament of Confirmation in his parish church, Santa Maria Segreta.

2005

In September, he began classical high school at the Jesuit Fathers’ Leo XIII Institute.

“In all dark and painful situations, there is a way out. Carlo found the way”

Pope Francis

2006

On October 2 Carlo falls ill and is initially thought to have flu. On Sunday 8 Carlo’s condition plummets and he is taken to the De Marchi clinic in Milan where he is diagnosed with M3 acute leukemia.

2006

Carlo’s heart stopped beating on Thursday 12 October, at 6:45 a.m. On Saturday 14, his funeral was held in Santa Maria Segreta.

2007

In January, Carlo’s body was moved from the cemetery in Ternengo to the one in Assisi, in accordance with his wishes.

2012

On Oct. 12, the cause of beatification and canonization of Charles opens and he becomes a Servant of God.

“The digital world can expose you to the risk of self-absorption and isolation. But there are young people even there who show creativity and even genius. Like Carlo”

Pope Francis

2013

On 13 May came the Nihil Obstat of the Holy See for the Cause for Carlo’s Beatification and Canonisation.

2016

24 November, in the Archdiocese of Milan, in the presence of Cardinal Scola, saw the completion of the process, at diocesan level, of the Cause for the Beatification and Canonisation of Carlo, the Servant of God.