Millions believe this British boy has performed miracles since his death at just 15. Today, amid dark whispers about the Catholic Church’s real intentions, Carlo Acutis will be anointed a saint
By DAVID JONES, CHIEF FOREIGN WRITER
For eight centuries since his death, the Umbrian mountain town of Assisi has been synonymous with Saint Francis, the son of a rich merchant family who forsook a vast inheritance to live as a wandering preacher.
Making light of the arduously steep streets, pilgrims venture here from far and wide to pray beside his tomb in the basilica and visit landmarks such as the Sanctuary of Spoliation, where he swapped his fine clothes for a loincloth.
Yet the legendary Francis is Assisi’s biggest attraction no longer. His popularity has been surpassed by that of the new kid on the town’s cobbled blocks: London-born Carlo Acutis, a boy who lived for just 15 years – and this morning he will be canonised as the first ‘Millennial Saint’.
‘When I came here, maybe one or two thousand visitors would visit this square each year,’ the Archbishop of Assisi Domenico Sorrentino told me, gesturing towards the sanctuary’s courtyard.
‘Do you know how many came last year? A million or more. All sorts of people used to come and see Francis but a new, younger type are coming for Carlo. At a time when society has many problems, he is their compass.’
With his boyband good looks, Carlo has been called the Rock Star of Roman Catholicism, and the cleric doesn’t demur. ‘But my time is of The Beatles,’ he laughs, breaking into a chorus of Yellow Submarine.
Carlo’s body is exhibited in the Church of St Mary Major in a uniquely designed, glass-sided tomb, suspended in mid-air so that it appears to have been torn from the Earth and floating to Heaven. Exhumed 13 years after his death, his remains are said to have been miraculously undecomposed.
It only needed a touch of silicon to restore his handsome features, so we are told, and he even retained his tousled hair.
Dressed for eternity in his weekend clothes – a designer tracksuit, blue jeans and Nike trainers – he looks like a Madame Tussauds waxwork of the teenage Harry Styles, and he appears to be smiling at the awed throngs who file past him, genuflecting, kissing the viewing window and posting scribbled prayers in a box beside him.
‘Carlo’s just so great!’ cooed Matilda Kalaga, 17, when I asked why she and her friends had made the long journey from Poland. ‘I relate to him because he was so normal. He was just like us really.’
Ushered out of the church to make way for others in the long queue, her group headed for souvenir shops cashing in on the Carlo craze by selling his statuettes (the largest of which costs 55 euros), fridge magnets, bags, broaches and even Christmas tree baubles bearing his fresh face.
As British tour guide Gwen Wiseman, who shows pilgrims landmarks of his life, tells me breathlessly: ‘Carlo has made it cool to be Catholic again!’
It would seem so. However, inside the upper echelons of the Catholic church there are those who don’t share this unbridled enthusiasm for Sunday’s sainting ceremony, though it promises another electrifying Vatican spectacle six months after the theatrical funeral of Pope Francis.
For they contend that Carlo’s canonisation has been contrived, or at least fast-tracked, purely because the Catholic church is desperate to reconnect with young people, who deserted the pews in their millions in disgust over its covered-up sexual abuse scandals.
This argument is illustrated, they say, by two giant tapestries draped above the Pope yesterday when he appeared on the steps of St Peter’s basilica. One is a very modern colour portrait depicting the wholesome-looking Carlo, out on a hike in a crimson shirt. The other, copied from a century-old monochrome photograph, shows a far less famous youth who will also be made a saint on Sunday, Pier Giorgio Frassati.
The ‘heroic virtues’ that earned them the church’s highest honour will be recounted before a vast audience in St Peter’s Square (sure to include many Britons, since Carlo came into the world in London’s Portland Clinic where several royal babies have been born). And in many ways the stories of Carlo, who spent the early months of his life in a fine townhouse in Kensington, South London, and Turin-based Pier, are remarkably similar. Both were young, athletic and strikingly handsome, both undoubtedly led exemplary lives, helping the poor and disadvantaged. Both also hailed from wealthy families.