The reliquary of Carlo Acutis is displayed at the altar of Most Blessed Sacrament Church during a visit by Diocese of Pittsburgh Auxiliary Bishop William Waltersheid on Friday, Jan 31, 2025.
Carlo Acutis was much like the typical teen boys of today: He was a fan of soccer and spent a lot of time on his computer.
He also was deeply religious and, in April, is expected to be the first person from the millennial generation to be canonized as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church.
"It's a story of a little boy who loved Jesus above all else," Diocese of Pittsburgh Auxiliary Bishop William Waltersheid said Friday while visiting St. Joseph High School in Harrison.
Waltersheid told Acutis' story to students as part of the school's observance of Catholic Schools Week.
And he didn't come empty-handed.
Waltersheid brought a relic of Blessed Carlo Acutis, the religious title Acutis holds until he is formally made a saint. In this case, the relic is strands of Acutis' hair housed in a reliquary -- an object specifically designed to hold a relic.
"A relic is a part of a person's body -- usually bone," Waltersheid said. "It can also be hair."
The gold reliquary features a flower with Acutis' hair and his photo.
In the Catholic Church, this is the Year of Jubilee, said Jennifer MacNeil, president of St. Joseph High School.
"Because (Acutis) is going to be canonized this year, and he's a teenager, and we are a high school full of teenagers, we wanted that positive story," MacNeil said. "(The story) that somebody so young could still have a great impact."
The relic is in the possession of the Pittsburgh Diocese. It is not touring churches prior to Acutis' being canonized. Instead, MacNeil specifically requested the visit to her school.
She said she wanted to share that positivity with students in recognition of the Year of Jubilee and the last day of Catholic Schools Week.
Acutis was born in May 1991 in London but soon after moved to Italy. Despite his parents not actively practicing their religion, they had Acutis baptized.
His nanny taught him prayers and how to lean on his faith and trust God that his grandfather, who had recently died, was all right, according to Waltersheid and the body of evidence being used to support Acutis' sainthood.
As Acutis grew, his love for his religion did, too. After receiving his first holy sacrament, Acutis began attending church every day, saying, "I can't live without the body and blood of Christ."
He convinced family, friends and neighbors to try praying and going to church. People in his community began coming to him with requests for prayers. He became known as the young man "whose prayers God listened to."
He began spreading church teachings on the internet, designing websites for his parish and school.
When he was 15, Acutis began documenting reported Eucharistic miracles around the world. In some circles, he's known as "God's influencer" for his online cataloging of Catholic miracles, according to Waltersheid.
Before he could finish the project, he died from leukemia in October 2006. Because of his online work, he sometimes is unofficially referred to as the "patron saint of the internet."
The topic of sainthood arose seriously when people visiting Acutis' first resting place in Ternengo, Italy, reported their prayers being answered, leading the Catholic Church to give him the title of "Venerable."
In 2020, an Acutis relic was credited with curing a child's pancreatic cancer, earning him the title "Blessed." It was the first of two miracles the church requires for sainthood.
Then, in 2022, 15 years after his death, he was credited with healing a Costa Rican woman who suffered a serious head injury after a bicycling accident in Italy.
The woman's mother visited Acutis' permanent tomb in Assisi, Italy, and prayed for her daughter's health. The daughter began breathing on her own the same day, and her CT scan showed the hemorrhage in her brain had disappeared.
"He was a young man who was normal, who was happy, who was a fan of sports," Waltersheid said.
Acutis is scheduled to be canonized April 27 during the Jubilee of Teenagers.
Student shares intense reaction
Sean Wolfe couldn't quite put his finger on the emotions he felt when he listened to the bishop's presentation about Acutis, but it brought him to tears.
The 16-year-old sophomore said he's been praying for Acutis' intercession for some time before the relic was brought to his school.
"When I found out about this, the minister told me, you know, about a month or two prior that he thought he could get (the relic) and then we did. I was really excited," Wolfe said.
During Waltersheid's preaching, Wolfe, of Buffalo Township, said rather than watching him move amongst the pulpit, he watched the tabernacle.
"I had my eyes on Jesus," he said. "I was just looking at him with the heart of my gaze.
"Part of it was grief over sin and part of it was just rejoicing over the fact he was there," Wolfe said. "I don't know. I just kept crying."
When it came time to hold the relic, Wolfe was brought to tears again. It was his first time being able to see a relic in person. He said some of his classmates were hesitant to hold it, so he presented it to them.
After the event, one of Wolfe's classmates texted him and said they saw Acutis in him.
"It was funny because the entire time the bishop was speaking, I kept thinking of ways I wasn't (like Acutis)," Wolfe said.
He said seeing the relic and hearing Acutis' story helped him feel closer to his faith and made his path with God clearer.
"I want to be God's. I want to be his and I want to love him," Wolfe said. "I want that to be the defining feature in my life."
Wolfe has been asked to lead a men's ministry at Saint Joseph. He said Acutis' story inspired him to develop a way to take time and pray with his classmates.
MacNeil said she plans to visit his tomb in Assisi this year.