Young people, tech lovers connect with soon-to-be-St. Carlo Acutis

(OSV News) -- Inside a century-old church in Toledo, Ohio, is a decidedly newer statue of a soon-to-be-saint.

The image of Blessed Carlo Acutis depicts the Italian teenager with his laptop, his rosary, a camera, a soccer ball and his pet dog. Blessed Carlo was a computer programer and Eucharist devotee who died of cancer in 2006 at age 15.

Young people are especially drawn to Blessed Carlo, who will be canonized April 27. Cristian Parga is one of them.

Parga and his classmates were researching confirmation saints last year when Carlo caught his eye. "I think just his kindness -- seeing how young he was and so devoted to God and helping others -- made me kind of want to do the same," said Parga, now a freshman at St. Francis de Sales School in Toledo. "That really made me want to make something with my class so everybody else could learn about him."

With the help of their school, Queen of Apostles Catholic School, and their parish, Immaculate Conception Church, Parga and his classmates worked to design and fundraise for a statue of Blessed Carlo.

They particularly wanted to include the laptop in the design, a nod to the website Blessed Carlo created featuring Eucharistic miracles from around the world, said Parga. They hosted a Valentine's Day dance, selling snacks and raffle tickets as a fundraiser for the statue.

Now, it's pretty cool to see the statue in his parish, said Parga. He hopes more young people can learn about the future millennial saint. "He was really a great example of how to live life," Parga told OSV News.

Daniel Francis, 34, is a Southern Baptist turned Catholic who is working to bring a statue of Blessed Carlo to his parish, Star of the Sea Church in San Francisco. Francis runs a company that uses artificial intelligence, AI, to turn police body camera footage into completed paperwork. He sees the Blessed Carlo statue as a way to let his fellow techies in the Bay Area know they have a friend in heaven.

"A lot of (my computer programming friends) would never step foot into a church, but if you've faced the kind of computer programming challenges that I have, it would make you step foot in a church," he said. "I give (Blessed Carlo) a lot of respect as a programmer and I pray to him every week for intercession for my programming problems."

While serving as a missionary in Italy, Peter Fagan visited Blessed Carlo's home parish in Milan, Italy, and saw his remains at a church in Assisi. Nowadays, Fagan is a parishioner of Blessed Carlo Acutis Church in Chicago, which became the only U.S. parish named after the pious teen when two city parishes merged.

Fagan hopes to celebrate Blessed Carlo's canonization by attending the Mass the parish is hosting on that day.

"What I find the most edifying about Carlo Acutis is that he looks like a normal guy," Fagan said. "He's making sanctity somehow more familiar and possible to the secularized world that we live in."

Had Blessed Carlo lived, he and Fagan would be only a year apart in age. "It puts a little pressure on, because I'm going for sainthood, too," he said with a laugh.

Santiago Ramirez Villa volunteered to write a skit about Blessed Carlo for his fourth-grade class, and ended up playing him, too. The experience taught Santiago that Acutis is a relatable role model for young people.

"Most of the kids in my class like video games and he liked video games, too," said Santiago, who attends Nativity School in Burke, Virginia. "You don't have to be a certain age to be holy. He's inspired me to do small things that have a big influence."

Caroline Prickel picked Blessed Carlo's name out of a hat full of saints. From then on, he became her heavenly advocate on the road to motherhood. When Prickel was engaged, she learned that after Blessed Carlo died, his mother gave birth to twins at age 44. Prickel was getting married at 37, and hoped to have children quickly. But shortly after the wedding, their first baby died in an ectopic pregnancy.

Prickel began working with a Catholic gynecologist, all the while growing in devotion to Blessed Carlo. A traveling relic of Blessed Carlo and his Eucharistic miracles display came to a parish near Prickel, and she and her husband, Andrew, attended. Then she learned that Blessed Carlo's mother, Antonia, was speaking at her workplace, The Catholic University of America in Washington.

"I told my husband, 'We have to go, this is so exciting,'" said Prickel. Antonia gave them a second-class relic, told them to pray to Our Lady of Pompeii, and assured them of her prayers, too.

"It was very emotional for me, and she was very reassuring," said Prickel, adding it "gave us a lot of hope."

A few weeks later, the couple found out they were pregnant. They decided to name their baby boy Charles after Blessed Carlo.

"My husband said, 'Even if we have more children, we know Blessed Carlo wanted us to have this baby,'" she said. The family hopes to attend his canonization in Italy. Prickel hopes to teach her son about his namesake and his tenacious pursuit of holiness.

"(Blessed Carlo's life) is a reminder that what you hear of these great saints of old is true and it's happening today," she said.

Miguel Garcia, 27, first learned about Blessed Carlo when he saw a picture on social media of him dressed in a Spider-Man costume.

"I'm a big fan of Spider-Man so that caught my eye," he said. As he learned more, Garcia was impressed by Blessed Carlo's age, his faith and his use of technology. Garcia works as a Milwaukee-based missionary for Iskali, a ministry geared toward young Latinos. He's also passionate about creating Christ-like content for Iskali's social media pages. Seeing the way Carlo used the internet to bring people to Christ inspires Garcia in his work and life.

"I always felt like I never connected with a saint," he said. "When I heard about Blessed Carlo, it was like I had a friend in heaven, like somebody was representing me."