Dear Carlo Acutis…

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A proud member of Generation X pens an open letter to this beloved millennial saint. 

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Let me begin by saying that I’ve always admired saints. I love their openness to grace when my doors are often shut to it. But, if I may, they are alien to me. Your brother-saint, Thomas Aquinas, framed it better than I ever could: “The dignity of the saints is so great because they are not of this world, but ‘of the household of God.’” That sums it up. You were in the world but not totally of the world. 

More baggage to unpack: I am Generation X, once branded the “lost” generation by Time, sandwiched in between the baby boomers and your proud lot, the millennials. But I think “forgotten” rings truer. Gen X has never been given proper credit. You’ll forgive me when I say that as millennials ascended to power in the 2000s, like many in my age bracket, there was begrudging respect coupled with a collective eye roll. Our cynicism is baked in. We can’t help it. 

I hope you’ll forgive this personal detour long enough for me to say that I stand in wonder of what you did in your 15 years. I wasn’t extraordinary at 15. I was typical—even conventional. I wanted to drive around with friends and savor the freedoms of my nascent adulthood. As teens go, you were different. An upgrade. 

You started a website tracking Eucharistic miracles and approved Marian apparitions, which shows an investment in your spiritual health uncommon in the young. Building a website isn’t extraordinary, then or now: There are dozens of sites devoted to cats floating in outer space. What sets yours apart is its mission and founder. 

I wonder if you understood how your faith would set you apart from other millennials. Indifference to religion is foreign to no generation, but it usually roots itself in the middle teen years. That taste of freedom can lure people away from the faith. You were the exception. Faith wasn’t something to run from but toward. 

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You encouraged others to be their most unique selves. “All people are born as originals,” you said once, “but many die as photocopies.” Again, you were the exception. There is no duplicate of you. 

My heart breaks for young people today who first encounter the world through an app. I scan the vast landscape of “influencers” today and all I can see are pretty photocopies encouraging their followers to speak, lift, dress, eat, dance, and moisturize as they do. People are conditioned now to follow a leader; individuality is unfashionable. But you understood that no two paths should look the same. 

While the Western world is encouraged to conform ourselves to the larger collective, you reminded us that God created us to be unique. “All the hairs of your head are counted,” Matthew 10:30–31 reads. “Do not be afraid.” That seemed to be your own mission statement. And your faith was fearless. 

I wish I had your example when I was trying to find my own voice. Gen X was the last to navigate the waters of adolescence without the horrors of social media. But growing up is always a challenge. It was designed that way. I’m sorry you never got to taste real adulthood. To me—and perhaps the world—you’ll always be 15. But thankfully, your soul was older than your years. Time is what you make of it. 

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You were a good son. You were not perfect, but you were perfectly made. I like to think that your mother, Antonia, was given one opportunity to make it count with you. She could not have done better. She gifted the world a young man whose heart stayed fixed on God. Even when you were bullied at day care, I can see you clenching your little fists, not to lash out but to maintain control. God is watching—of that you were sure. Not many preadolescents have the presence of mind to understand that. 

When I was young (but old enough to know better), I would pull the chairs out from under the other kids and roar as they hit the floor. It was my thing. I would also halt escalators and pull the wigs off mannequins in department stores. I wasn’t rotten but I was work. Let’s be fair: a work in progress.

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But you, Carlo, were imbued with a kind of stillness and wisdom not found in most children. You were emotionally and spiritually aware. There are adults in this world in positions of power who haven’t learned that lesson. You mastered it before you could drive, but you had a model to go on. 

When Jesus was 12 and his parents thought he was lost, they found him in the Temple in Jerusalem. His mother, frazzled, admonished her son. His response makes me think of you. From Luke 2:49: “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” 

You loved Eucharistic adoration—that much we know. So, your heart was always in your Father’s house. Deep in prayer or lost in thought, you were centered in church. God’s house is a respite. You found it there. 

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When you died, the world lost a legend, but heaven gained a saint. No one in this life can escape death. If you live into adulthood, it’s a win. Your time was brief, but you made those years reverberate the world over. The saints who came before you did the same. Joan of Arc, the true phoenix of Catholic saints, said, “One life is all we have . . . but to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying.” 

While there is wisdom in stopping long enough to appreciate where we are standing, one eye should be on the road ahead. You understood that. Gratitude is about taking a breath and surveying life’s blessings. But how many of us work in collaboration with God on the life to follow? 

I look to saints like you—and Joan—to give me a measure of hope in this life and a road map for the next. But you were not content to live an anonymous life of piety. You put it online. Like any millennial worth his weight, you understood that the digital world at the time was flowering. 

In the years since you died, we have strayed. Too often we create or spread malice online. My prayer for all of us is that we take a page from your book and learn to be instruments of peace in the digital world that seems to favor aggression. That is part of your legacy. And while no one can escape death, you surrendered your will to that of God’s. The rest of us can learn from that. 

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And now you belong to the ages. I have always categorized you as “the millennial saint,” but that is limiting. You are timeless. I am from the generation that preceded yours, but I was 15 once too: one foot in childhood, the other inching toward adulthood. And it is because you lived in between those two stages of life that you can empathize with the young while inspiring the old. In Isaiah it is said that a child will lead us. I am only too happy to follow. 

As the Church promotes you from blessed to saint, count me among the masses of people of all generations who are grateful that you walked with us in this life and ahead of us in the one to come. You finished the race, Carlo. You kept the faith. 

Say a prayer for us wounded souls here—that we somehow leave the world better than we found it. 

Pace, fratello—
Chris 

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Sidebar: Chiara Badano: The ‘Light’ of Generation X

When Chiara Badano joined the Focolare Movement in her native Italy at the age of 9, she was called “Luce” or “light” by its founder, Servant of God Chiara Lubich (1920–2008).

It was a worthy nickname. Born in Sassello in 1971, Chiara was, in many respects, a typical European girl who loved music, dancing, and sports. But her religious fervor was so prominent that she faced alienation from her peers. In 1988, shoulder pain, thought to be a tennis injury, turned out to be bone cancer.

Unfazed, she is reported to have said, “It’s for you, Jesus. If you want it, I want it too.”

It was around this time that Gen X began to ascend to prominence. The media painted them as aimless and unfulfilled. Chiara, on the contrary, seemed perpetually at peace and desired only what God had planned for her—even when treatment for her cancer was painful and, ultimately, futile. She died in 1990. Before she passed, she said, “I care only about doing the will of God, doing it well, in the present moment.”

Pope Benedict XVI beatified Chiara Badano in 2010. To find out more about her life and her light, visit ChiaraBadano.org/en.

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