How to get away with a young digital Saint
How the Catholic Church, wasted by old and new scandals, quickly decided the beatification of a boy who died at 15 years and, at the same time, is trying to create the Internet Holy Patron.
What’s the Catholic Church known for, at this time? After many years and many million euros spent trying to control the horrible and extended issue of pedophilia among Prelates and high-Prelates, here’s what today the Catholic Church does: wager in troubled companies death and having fun with “investments in credit default swap, in disreputable oil companies, passages in Swiss and Malaysian banks under investigation for corruption, speculative finance based in tax havens” (quote: “Repubblica” the most important Italian newspaper).
We can’t avoid talking of Cardinal Becciu, who was in control of Vatican Finance until a few days ago and we can’t avoid talking of the young and beautiful Cecilia Marogna (now under arrest), a bad reputation speculator, who got half a million euros from Cardinal Becciu “to support humanitarian missions” but sadly she used all that Vatican money to buy a lot of new and haute couture jewels, clothes, bags, shoes (I’m just talking about Chanel, Prada, Tod’s and similar…) and very expensive furniture.
Because of constant bad press and hemorrhaging money, the Catholic Church is forced to invent something spiritual, to be able to win new faithful and fresh money with them; once again, all that money is not going to the poor and the excluded, but straight to the new Cardinal on duty, to be used in new dirty profiteering: in short, the “circle of the good life” according to the Vatican State.
Becciu’s Secretary didn’t know they were being tapped by the Italian Police, so he said: “Let’s pretend charity, otherwise we are going to get shot!” About the creation of a digital Saint, the best minds of the Catholic Church could have thought: “Let’s pretend holiness, otherwise we are going to be abandoned!”
So, who is the young digital Saint? The Chosen one for such an important position is Carlo Acutis, an Italian kid from Milano, born in a wealthy family. He died at 15 years of leukemia, in 2006; Carlo loved the Internet and loved God. It is necessary to remember that the Internet, in the noughties, was easy to use and a billion light-years from the nowadays Internet. Twitter was born in 2006, Facebook became accessible in 2006, Youtube was born in 2005. Poor Carlo’s hyper-Catholic mother said to the journalists that she decided to give her son a nickname: “God’s Influencer”, but she was wrong twice: when her son Carlo was alive and used to surf the Internet there were no influencers yet; and, God’s Influencer sounds a bit arrogant as a name: perhaps “God’s follower” would be most appropriate.
In summary, the unlucky Carlo Acutis loved the Internet, as all the boys and girls in the world, and he loved God, that’s something quite normal for a kid with such a catholic mom. And then? Family friends say:
“He played football. He used to trek in the mountain. He played saxophone and went to a pizzeria with his friends. Carlo had a pretty normal life, but during his short existence, he always tried to communicate his great Faith to everyone.”
Very good. But still, I cannot see any Holiness. His mother says:
“Since he was very, very young he always showed to love Jesus. He was generous and unselfish, and he was so dutiful that I never had to scold him.”
I’m generous and unselfish too, but trust me, I will never be Saint! And if we’re talking about obedience and Holiness, do you know who wasn’t dutiful at all, as a child? Jesus, the way we know him by Apocryphal Gospels, the only Gospels telling us the childhood of Jesus in full. Mary and Joseph had to go from town to town, always on the move, because Jesus, since he was less than three years old, could get into trouble:
“…Jesus said: who knows any game?
The kids said: We don’t!
-So, everybody, pay attention! Look! — Jesus said. He took some clay in his hand and made a sparrow with it, then he blew and the bird flew away. Then he said — Get up! Come and catch the sparrow!”
But all the children stood and watched astonished and they were shocked by Jesus’ miracle. Then Jesus picked up from the ground a handful of dust, he threw it in the air and he turned dust into flies and mosquitos that filled the city. Men and animals were vexed by them. And Jesus took some more clay and turned it into bees and wasps and started to sic those insects on the other children who were really frightened.”
(quote: “Armenian Gospel of the Childhood” XVIII, 2,3)
That’s the point: to be Saint you don’t need to be an obedient kid, but you have just two choices, doing miracles or dying as a martyr, sacrificing your life in the name of your God, like the first Christian martyrs who were persecuted, tortured and killed by the Romans, before Emperor Constantinus turned Christianity into official religion. To be honest, in the short Carlo Acutis life there were no miracles and in his sad and unfair death, there was no martyrdom.
So, how did they manage to beatify him? Through the miracle of creating miracles; the Catholic Church found an event: in 2010, in a Brazilian village, a child was born with a malformation in his pancreas, which healed against all expectations: the organ regenerated itself, that is rare but not unique. The Catholic Church decided that healing was due to a special prayer made by a priest while touching the ill child with a piece of Carlo Acutis’ pajama. Sources give different versions about this “miracle”: it happened in 2010, or maybe in 2013; the one who touched the child with Carlo’s pajama was a priest, or maybe not. Anyway, here’s my question: why Carlo Acutis sleepwear pieces were used as sacred relics in a faraway Brazil village much time before Carlo could be imagined as a Saint?
But even granting the “special prayer with pajama pieces” is true, where is the proof that the ill child was healed by Carlo’s sleepwear? That’s why one only miracle is never enough, especially if the “miracle” is healing. The physical cures must be several. The miracles too. Holiness signs must be many, clear, evident, to turn someone into a Saint. But today the Catholic Church is losing power and desperately needs fresh money and fresh faithful; there’s nothing better than an Internet kid Saint to catch new young faithful who can identify themselves with him.
But it’s still not enough. The next step is to get the young digital Saint Carlo into the Internet Holy Patron. As if the Internet would need protection, and — even worse — forgetting the Internet already has a Holy Patron (he can look kind of evil and somebody could say “he’s still alive” but believe me, he’s not a living organism): his name is Mark Zuckerberg.
