A saint with a song: Blessed Carlo Acutis honored in 'Corpus Christi' single, video

(OSV News) -- Blessed Carlo Acutis, the Italian teen set to be canonized April 27, has been hailed as a model for modern youth -- and now, the soon-to-be-saint and his devotion to the Eucharist have been honored in a new single and video.

In March, artist Le Concorde released the song "Corpus Christi," along with a video that uses retro pixel art to illustrate Blessed Carlo's fascination with Eucharistic miracles, which he cataloged in a database, drawing on his formidable computer skills.

The sunny-faced teen -- who was born in London in 1991 and grew up in Milan, Italy -- displayed an early attraction to the spiritual life, reciting the rosary and attending Mass daily, serving as a catechist, volunteering at a church soup kitchen and tutoring children with their homework. At the same time, Carlo was known for his enthusiasm for typical teenage interests, such as video games, pets, soccer and music.

Carlo died of leukemia in 2006 at age 15, offering his sufferings for the church and for then-Pope Benedict XVI. The teen's brief life of extraordinary holiness quickly set him on the path to sainthood: He was declared "Venerable" by Pope Francis in 2018 and beatified in 2020, with the pope announcing in November 2024 that he would elevate Blessed Carlo to sainthood during the April 25-27 Jubilee for Adolescents in Rome.

"Corpus Christi" and its accompanying video emerged from two sources of inspiration -- a rediscovery of the lives of the saints, and a longtime desire to create an album of "sophistipop" music, said Stephen Becker, the Los Angeles-based Catholic singer-songwriter behind Le Concorde.

The pairing of personal sanctity with the sophistipop genre -- the 1980s style where smooth jazz met glam, art and avant-garde forms of rock -- at first seemed unlikely, admitted Becker, who has four critically acclaimed album releases to his credit.

"These two things did not necessarily go together for me," he told OSV News. "And I sort of surrendered everything before God. I felt like I got a big 'yes.'"

Crafting the song, with Becker's lush synthesizers layered over keyboard and rhythm tracks, was akin to fashioning a "bejeweled monstrance" that points to the glory of the Real Presence, he said.

The analogy is particularly poignant for Becker, a self-described "cradle Catholic turned truth seeker" who returned to the faith of his childhood after wrestling with its central mysteries.
Becker, who holds a doctorate in rhetoric, said he "overturned every stone" in "looking for the truth and true spirituality.

"I finally said to myself, 'Do I dare look again harder at Christianity, despite the outward, wordly aspects that have turned me away?'" he said.

The process of reexamining the faith was marked by "signal graces," said Becker.

"I just felt and knew deeply that Jesus was right there with me and always had been there," Becker said. "And it was like he was saying, 'It's OK. Come and put your fingers into my wounds. … Go look at this stuff as hard as you want.'"

Becker said he soon became "completely convinced of the reality of the Resurrection" -- but realized he would have to "cross that bridge" of accepting transubstantiation, the changing of the whole substance of both the bread and the wine, effected by a validly ordained Catholic priest during consecration at the sacrifice of the Mass, into the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ.

"I just thought, 'If God loves us so much, if he's so generous, how can it be that we would go for 2,000 years without any outward indications that it (the Eucharist) is in fact the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus … present in the host?'" Becker said. "And the minute that I actually asked that question, of course, I started learning about all of these (Eucharistic) miracles."

Becker soon learned of Blessed Carlo's work in cataloging the miracles -- and quickly began wondering why "all Catholics are not talking about this all the time."

For his part, Becker is trying to spark more conversation, with his song's lyrics making the point explicit: "Tissue torn from yours/Is now a part of mine/Corpus Christi/Carlo cataloging the signs/Corpus Christi…"

The video's pixel art, which shows Blessed Carlo at his computer cataloging Eucharistic miracles, "is a tribute to Carlo through and through," said Becker, who is working on the upcoming album "Second Mansions," of which "Corpus Christi" is the first release.

The song "explores some difficult questions," said Becker.

And, he added, "it leaves in a lot of mystery."