The pianist lightly tapped his fingers along the keys as the guitarist strummed and plucked along to the tune. Vocalists stirred their voices into the mix before bringing the melody into a crescendo that sang praise to Jesus.
Students, families and members of the Catholic Terps community trickled into the chapel at the Catholic Student Center at the University of Maryland in College Park, away from honking cars and the summer heat, to recognize and honor the historic canonization of St. Carlo Acutis on Sept. 7, 2025 with what he loved the most: the Eucharist.
Through a praise-and-worship sung Holy Hour and a Eucharistic procession, worshipers were able to connect with the new saint through prayer, soul-stirring music and veneration of a first-class relic of his hair.
In his homily, Father Conrad Murphy, the chaplain at the Catholic Student Center, said, “He (Jesus) is so in love with you that He’s willing to work through a kid who’s like you as well, who likes Pokémon and knows how to code and can talk to you about those things. Because he (St. Carlo Acutis) is so like us, he should inspire us (to know) that you are called to be one of those folks. God’s going to use you to bring others to know Him, to be loved.”
St. Carlo Acutis was born in London in 1991 and died in 2006 at age 15, making him the Catholic Church’s first millennial saint. Pope Leo XIV canonized him earlier that day during a Mass in Rome. During his lifetime, the teenager coded a website sharing information about Eucharistic miracles; Marian apparitions; angels and demons; as well as Hell, Purgatory and Heaven. His commitment to the faith also led to the conversion of his parents.
In an interview, James van Doorn, a second-year master’s student studying information management, said the new saint’s story resonated with him through his work and personal life.
“We both have a technical background, and it’s amazing what he did using his technical skills for the faith, designing the website,” van Doorn said. “It’s great from a theological perspective as well as a web design perspective, and I want to replicate that… It can be easy for someone who is in STEM to lose their faith, and I think it’s really admirable how Carlo not only didn’t lose his faith while doing these technical projects, but he used it to deepen his faith and deepen the faith of others.”
Julia Plumer, a violin performance master’s student at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, said that having a millennial saint puts the importance of youths’ faith into perspective.
“It’s the fact that he relates to more of our life now, it’s like any of us can become a saint,” Plumer said in an interview. “I think it's very inspiring, I guess, because a lot of the time we think that we could never become saints, but now we have someone who had the internet and is of our age.”
After the Holy Hour and Eucharistic procession around the Catholic Student Center, people were allowed to venerate a relic of St. Carlo Acutis’s hair, allowing many students to encounter a first-class relic for the first time.
This year, the Catholic Student Center has begun extensive renovations to its building. According to Father Murphy, St. Carlo Acutis’s example of youthful holiness and love of the Eucharist is the inspiration for the center’s future Perpetual Adoration chapel, which is to be dedicated in his honor.
“I want students and young people to know that all of us are called to be saints, whether we’re canonized or not,” Father Murphy said. “He’s someone who’s not far away. He’s just a normal kid who loves Jesus.”
(Elizabeth Polo is a journalism student at the University of Maryland.)
