Merch featuring St. Carlo Acutis, the patron saint of the internet, is proliferating online as the day of his canonization approaches. Soon to gain the title as the first millennial Catholic saint, Acutis died young after a life of helping the weak, poor, and sick, as well as creating an online database of global eucharistic miracles starting at age 11. His smiling face now adorns t-shirts and rosaries across sites like Etsy.
The Catholic church appears thrilled with the renewed interest in the religion thanks to Acutis (who appeals to young people in particular), after years of declining membership. However, they took issue with some of the merchandise available online, denouncing fake relics as “despicable.”
The life and death of St. Carlo Acutis
Acutis was born on May 3, 1991 and developed an interest in Catholicism at a young age. Although his parents weren’t exactly devout, he loved praying the rosary and started asking to enter every church he spotted to “say hi” to Mary and Jesus. He started attending mass daily after receiving his first communion at age seven.
More than anything, Acutis had a deep fascination in the Liturgy of the Eucharist. Also known as Holy Communion, this ritual involves prayer and the consumption of bread and wine that transform into the body and blood of Christ, according to Catholic dogma.
Participants often pray for boons from God during this process, leading to the phenomenon of eucharistic miracles—seemingly supernatural events that occur due to these prayers.
As a young techie, Acutis started researching and documenting these incidents at age 11. By 15, shortly before he died of acute myeloid leukemia on Oct. 12, 2006, he finished outlining every known eucharistic miracle on his website.
Why make Carlo Acutis a saint?
His work bringing knowledge of these miracles into the digital age caught the attention of the church, but it was his overall selflessness that made him a candidate for sainthood. He regularly volunteered to help the homeless, defended classmates from bullies, and instructed his parents to donate to the poor rather than buy him a second pair of sneakers.
“Carlo was a witness, a silent witness through the value of friendship, through the value of generosity, helping his classmates in school, defending the teens who were bullied,” said his mother Antonia Salzano Acutis.
@c4news A London-born Italian teenager, Carlo Acutis who died of leukaemia aged 15 is going to become the Catholic church’s first millennial saint after ‘performing miracles’. #CatholicChurch #PopeFrancis #CarloAcutis #ItalianNews #Vatican #Miracle #C4News ♬ original sound – Channel 4 News
These works and his preaching to his peers set the stage. The church beatified him in 2013, which is the second step toward canonization. On July 5, 2018, Pope Francis declared him “Venerable,” paving the way for full saint status. Acutis’ sainthood became inevitable after multiple Catholics came forward claiming loved ones healed after they prayed to the boy—eucharistic miracles.
The Catholic church will officially canonize him on April 27, 2025.
The merch line explodes, and so does the church
Acutis’ tech skills and website are the primary reasons for the rise of his title as the patron saint of the internet. However, his casual millennial attitude and relatability fueled this association and the proliferation of Acutis merchandise. Today, there are over 1,000 entries on Etsy for Carlo Acutis, including stickers, icons, apparel, statues, and LEGO figurines.
According to AP News, souvenir shops in his hometown of Milan, Italy are similarly stocked with Carlo Acutis merch. His chill smile and red polo shirt are a huge draw as millennials and younger folks relate to him. He’s become a symbol telling the youth that you can be Catholic and also still be just normal men.
“Carlo wasn’t an alien, he was a normal person. But if it’s illuminated by the light of Christ, a life becomes extraordinary,” his mom said.
For Catholics like Pope Francis, this may be a more appealing draw to bolster their declining numbers than the recent right-wing pivot among young men around the world.
However, Catholics aren’t fans of all Carlo Acutis merch. The popularity of the saint-to-be rose so high that online sellers started claiming to have “relics” like pieces of the boy’s hair available for as much as $2,200.
Father Enzo Fortunato, who says he actually has a small fragment of Acutis’ hair in his chapel, strongly condemned these hucksters.
“It’s not just despicable, but it’s also a sin,” he said. “Every kind of commerce over faith is a sin.”
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