“We are happy that the Pope has announced, together with many other Saints, the canonization of Blessed Carlo Acutis, whose mortal remains are preserved at the Sanctuary of the Spoliation of Assisi. The date has not yet been determined, but we are certain that the Saint Father will want to choose a significant occasion, let’s imagine in the next Jubilee year, so that the testimony of our Carlo continues to impact the consciences, especially of young people and adolescents but not only, arousing a great love for Jesus in the Eucharist and a great desire for holiness on in his footsteps and those of the Saints who inspired him, especially Francis of Assisi”: this is what the bishop of Assisi, Monsignor Domenico Sorrentino, said.
“In these months – continues the bishop – our Church of Assisi will do its best to welcome the many pilgrims and devotees who are multiplying in the world. Francesco and Carlo together are an exceptional team of proclamation of the Gospel, showing the truth of what Blessed Carlo loved to say to young people: ‘Only Jesus is capable of making originals and not photocopies, filling our lives with joy'”.
“The book that I am republishing (Originals not photocopies, Carlo Acutis and Francis of Assisi, Edizioni Francescane Italiane) integrated and augmented – adds Monsignor Sorrentino – will show it convincingly in the world, but even more so the faces of young people and pilgrims will show it who look into our Sanctuary and from contact with the remains of Charles and crossing the door of Francis feel pushed to review their existence in the direction of the Gospel. This place – concludes the bishop – has quickly become a true erupting volcano of grace and holiness”.
At the end of May, Pope Francis recognized the new miracle of Carlo Acutis, authorizing the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints to publish the related decree. This is the miracle achieved for Valeria, a young woman from Costa Rica and university student in Florence, who in July 2022 fell from her bicycle and ended up in an irreversible coma. At Careggi they diagnosed her with a very serious head injury, her life expectancy was eliminated. Her mother Liliana, six days later, came to Assisi to recommend her daughter to Blessed Carlo and she spent the whole day kneeling in front of her tomb.
In the evening she received a phone call from the hospital informing her of her daughter’s sudden and inexplicable improvement: Valeria had started breathing spontaneously again, and the next day she began to move and partially speak again. In September, together with her mother, Valeria came to Assisi to pray at Carlo’s tomb and give thanks for the miracle received.
In 2020, Acutis had already been declared blessed by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints which had examined another miracle of his, which occurred in October 2013 in the church of San Sebastiano in Campo Grande, Brazil: after having touched a relic of the young man, a piece of shirt resting on his body, a six-year-old boy named Matheus, who suffered from a serious pancreatic anomaly, was completely recovered.
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