Blessed Carlo Acutis exhibits on display throughout diocese

Oct. 12 marks the feast day of Blessed Carlo Acutis, a millennial-generation teenager who chronicled an extensive online database of eucharistic miracles throughout history.

St. Gregory the Great Church in Williamsville celebrated the feast day by opening a four-day exhibition of Blessed Carlo’s work and the display of a relic within its sanctuary.

During a noon-hour Mass which opened the exhibition, Father Daniel Ulmer paraphrased Blessed Carlo’s quote: “When we face the sun we get a tan, but when we stand before Jesus in the Eucharist, we become saints.”

The exhibit at St. Gregory the Great also features several rows of posterboard displays which detail the many Eucharistic miracles Acutis cataloged on the website he designed.

The exhibit will continue Friday, Oct. 13 from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday, Oct 14 from 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Sunday, Oct. 15 from 8:30 p.m. to 2 p.m.

Another Blessed Carlo Acutis exhibit will be displayed in the Church Hall following all Masses Saturday, Oct. 14 and Sunday, Oct. 15 at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Church in Orchard Park. A similar exhibit recently concluded at the Sacred Heart of Jesus Shrine in Bowmansville.

The exhibit is scheduled to appear Oct. 28 and 29 at Our Lady of Mercy Parish in LeRoy.

Acutis was born in London on May 3, 1991, to an Italian family, which moved back to Italy just months later. As a student, Blessed Carlo attended Marcelline Tommaseo Institute, operated by the Sisters of St. Marcellina. He later attended the Jesuit Instituto Leone XIII high school.

He was considered an average student, but demonstrated an emerging passion for computer science. He also gained a reputation for compassion, interacting with home caretakers he encountered while walking to and from school, and picking up trash while hiking or visiting the beach.

Blessed Carlo was a devoted Catholic who went on several pilgrimages, including visits to Fatima, Portugal and Lourdes, France. He saw his website of eucharistic miracles as a means to share the faith to a new generation. He began work on his website in 2004 and launched it publicly in October 2006.

That same month, however, Blessed Carlo began developing health complications which made him too weak to attend Mass. An examination by doctors led to their diagnosis of acute promyelocytric leukemia, a cancer of the white blood cells. He died on Oct. 12, 2006, at the age of 15.

In attendance at his funeral were two women who later claimed they benefited from miracles attributed to Blessed Carlo. One of the women, who had a cancerous tumor, told her doctor days later that the growth had disappeared. The other woman, who had struggled up to that point to give birth, finally had her first child nine months later. Both women credited the intercession of Carlo Acutis for their reversals of fortune.

Additional miracles were since credited to Blessed Carlo, including one in Brazil in 2019 that Pope Francis confirmed in February 2020. Blessed Carlo was beatified in October 2020.