A year after her son was canonised as the Catholic Church’s first millennial saint, Antonia Salzano Acutis says the greatest fruit of St Carlo Acutis’ life is not his growing popularity, but the number of people being drawn closer to Jesus Christ, the Eucharist and the sacraments.
Speaking in an interview marking the first anniversary of Carlo’s canonisation, Mrs Salzano Acutis reflected on the extraordinary journey that began with the death of her 15-year-old son in 2006 and culminated in St Peter’s Square on 7 September 2025, when Pope Leo XIV formally declared him a saint alongside St Pier Giorgio Frassati.
“Since that date of 2025, the date of the canonisation, we have seen many, many fruits, many beautiful things,” she said. “We are grateful to God because through Carlo he is doing a lot of miracles, a lot of conversions. Carlo is an instrument to spread the Good News, especially to help people to get closer to the Church, to the sacraments.”
Mrs Salzano Acutis adds that this is particularly significant because the Eucharist was at the centre of her son’s spiritual life. “Carlo was aware,” she said. “He used to say that the Eucharist is our highway to heaven because in the Eucharist, we have the real presence of God among us.” She said that through Carlo’s witness, people who had previously stopped attending Mass or going to confession were rediscovering the beauty of the Catholic faith.
“Carlo is really a powerful means of God to help people to get closer and to discover the beauty of our faith,” she said.
From an ordinary teenager to a saint
Born in London on 3 May 1991 to Italian parents, Carlo moved with his family to Milan when he was only a few months old. Although he enjoyed many of the interests associated with an ordinary teenager, computers, video games, football, music, animals and friendships, his mother witnessed a profound spiritual life developing from an early age.
Carlo had a particular devotion to the Eucharist and Our Lady. He attended daily Mass, prayed the Rosary and sought to serve those around him, particularly people who were poor or vulnerable.
His technological abilities became another means of evangelisation. Beginning when he was about 11, Carlo researched and catalogued Eucharistic miracles recognised by the Church and created a website documenting them. His work eventually became a travelling exhibition that has reached countries around the world.
His life, however, was extraordinarily short. In October 2006, Carlo was diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukaemia. His condition deteriorated rapidly and, on 12 October 2006, he died in Monza, Italy, at the age of 15. According to the Vatican’s official biography prepared for his canonisation, Carlo offered his suffering for the Pope, the Church and the hope of going to heaven.
His witness did not end with his death. The diocesan investigation into his life and virtues was conducted in Milan between 2013 and 2016. In 2018, Pope Francis authorised the decree recognising Carlo’s heroic virtue, giving him the title Venerable. In 2019, Pope Francis approved a miracle attributed to Carlo’s intercession, involving the healing of a Brazilian child. This opened the way for his beatification in Assisi on 10 October 2020.
The next step came in May 2024, when the Vatican announced the recognition of a second miracle attributed to Carlo’s intercession. The case involved Valeria Valverde, a young Costa Rican woman who suffered severe head trauma in a bicycle accident in Florence in 2022. The approval of the miracle cleared the final major hurdle towards canonisation.
The canonisation was initially planned for April 2025 during the Jubilee of Teenagers, but was postponed following the death of Pope Francis. Pope Leo XIV subsequently announced that Carlo and Pier Giorgio Frassati would be canonised on 7 September 2025.
On that day, St Peter’s Square was filled with pilgrims, particularly young people, as Pope Leo XIV proclaimed the two young Italians saints. In his homily, Pope Leo reminded the faithful that holiness is not reserved for a select few. “All of us are called to be saints,” he said, pointing to Carlo and Pier Giorgio as witnesses of love for Christ, particularly in the Eucharist and in service of others.
‘God passed the baton to me’
Mrs Salzano Acutis says that the canonisation has also transformed her own life. She has travelled extensively, sharing her son’s testimony and speaking particularly about his love for the Eucharist.
Asked whether she feels that Carlo has somehow passed the baton to her, she acknowledged that her life has taken a direction she could never have imagined. “If somebody had told me when I was 16 years old about this, I would never have believed,” she said.
Her ability to speak five languages has helped her communicate Carlo’s message across different countries and cultures. But her central mission remains clear: to communicate her son’s love for the Eucharist.
Carlo’s interest in Eucharistic miracles was not simply a fascination with extraordinary phenomena. For him, they were signs intended to strengthen faith in the Real Presence of Christ. Mrs Salzano Acutis pointed to the Eucharistic miracle of Legnica, Poland, which occurred in 2013. Scientific examination of the material that appeared on the consecrated Host found characteristics resembling human heart muscle, including changes associated with agony. EWTN has also highlighted the Legnica event as an example of the Eucharistic miracles Carlo sought to document.
For Carlo’s mother, such events point towards the mystery of the Eucharist itself. “The Eucharist is God,” she said. “God helps us through a Eucharistic life to transform us with his holiness and to help us to become holier.”
A message to young people in the digital age
Perhaps fittingly for the mother of a saint who used technology to evangelise, one of the final questions in the interview concerned social media. Young people today can easily become dependent on the approval of others online, seeking their identity, purpose and happiness through likes, followers and recognition.
Mrs Salzano Acutis believes Carlo would encourage them to look in a different direction. She recalled Carlo’s understanding that, through Baptism, Christians carry within themselves the presence of the Holy Trinity. “The problem is to connect with this presence that we have inside us,” she said.
Instead of constantly searching outside themselves, young people need to cultivate their interior spiritual life. Social media, she acknowledged, can be good when used with balance. But it should never replace prayer, silence or a relationship with God. She suggested something simple: getting up 15 minutes earlier to pray the Rosary. “We have to grow in this inner spiritual life,” she said. “To do this we need to pray, to give space to God.”
Carlo’s spirituality, she explained, was also about transforming ordinary life into prayer. “Cleaning the house, cooking, studying, working, can become a continuous prayer,” she said. The goal is to learn to live constantly in the presence of God. “And everything with balance,” she stressed.
She was not rejecting technology, but emphasised its proper use and balance. “Social media also can be used to spread the Good News of Jesus,” she said. “Everything with balance, but always with the presence of God at the centre.”
‘Put God first’
In her message to Catholics in South Africa, Mrs Salzano Acutis returned to the practices that characterised Carlo’s own spiritual life: daily Mass, Eucharistic adoration, the Rosary and Sacred Scripture.
“I recommend you, like Carlo, daily Mass, Eucharistic Adoration each day, the Rosary prayer each day,” she said. She also encouraged people to read the Bible, describing Scripture as much more than an ordinary book.
“Through the Bible the Holy Spirit speaks,” she said. “God will transfigure us, will purify us.” Ultimately, she said, the Christian vocation is to put God first. “A life of success is a life which will put God at the first place,” she said, recalling her son’s teaching. She added that to Carlo, holiness did not mean becoming someone else. It meant becoming the person God had created him to be. “You can become a saint like Carlo,” his mother said.
And then she recalled one of her son’s best-known sayings: “All are born original, but many die as photocopies.” “Sadness is looking at ourselves; happiness is looking towards God,” she said.
“God bless you all. I pray for you.”
- ‘Carlo is an instrument of God’: His mother reflects on the first year of her son’s sainthood - September 11, 2026
- Durban youth urged to keep their lamps burning for Christ - August 31, 2026
- Archbishop Jwara: I Hope to Build a Church Where All Belong - August 28, 2026
