Bishop blesses building named for Blessed Acutis

ABSECON — By putting the name of Carlo Acutis on a youth center here, Bishop Dennis Sullivan drew attention to a young man who suffered an early death but who impressed many — including Pope Francis — with his devotion to the Eucharist.

The ceremony to bless the newly named building was a reminder that age, nationality and modern society are not necessarily impediments to personal holiness, and that the church’s ancient mission can be carried out in a culture that is constantly changing.

Located next to Holy Spirit High School, the Blessed Carlo Acutis Youth Center is a former convent that is currently used for Kairos retreats, the Summer in the City program and other youth-oriented activities. Several priests joined Bishop Sullivan for the blessing, including Father Perry Cherubini, president of Holy Cross High School; Father Joshua Nevitt, the school’s Director of Catholic Identity; and Father Cosme de la Pena, pastor of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish, Absecon.

Speaking to Holy Spirit students attending the ceremony, the bishop stressed that Blessed Acutis’ example showed that holiness is not just for senior citizens, “goody-two shoes” or “people who wear collars like this,” he said, indicating his clerical collar.

Blessed Acutis, who died at the age of 15 from leukemia, used his computer programming skills to spread devotion to the Eucharist. His beatification Mass was held Oct. 10, the day after the blessing in Absecon, in the Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi in Italy.

The teen was devoted to Saint Francis, and the center now named for him has a statue of the saint near its entrance.

In his exhortation on young people, “Christus Vivit” (“Christ Lives”), Pope Francis said Blessed Acutis was a model for young people today who are often tempted by the traps of “self-absorption, isolation and empty pleasure.”

“Carlo was well-aware that the whole apparatus of communications, advertising and social networking can be used to lull us, to make us addicted to consumerism and buying the latest thing on the market, obsessed with our free time, caught up in negativity,” the pope wrote.

“Yet he knew how to use the new communications technology to transmit the Gospel, to communicate values and beauty,” he said.

Bishop Sullivan has enthusiastically embraced the idea of using modern communications for the church’s mission. In recent years, the Diocese of Camden and its offices have started Twitter, Instagram and Facebook accounts, and also established YouTube channels and podcast series.

Yet the bishop did not highlight Blessed Acutis’ technical accomplishments, which include using his computer skills to catalogue Eucharistic miracles around the world. Standing in front of a photo of Acutis — and seeming to relish spending time with young people on a bright and pleasantly breezy weekday morning — the bishop focused on the teenager’s youthful but unstuffy piety.

The young man who was buried wearing sneakers, jeans and a track suit shows that “holiness is possible for you,” he said to the high school students. The bishop stressed that in addition to his devotion to the Eucharist, Blessed Acutis was deeply concerned with the poor.

The bishop’s characterization of Blessed Acutis as a typical teenager with an uncommon devotion to the church’s devotions and social justice echoed that of the boy’s own mother.

“Carlo led a normal life: he went to school, he played sports, he played video games, although usually just one hour a week because he understood that one could be enslaved by video games,” Antonia Salzano, Blessed Acutis’ mother, said in a 2019 interview.

She recalled her son helping his peers who were bullied and saving money to help poor people. He was sympathetic to immigrants, she said.

Bishop Sullivan noted that a facility to help the homeless will soon be opened near the site where Blessed Acutis is buried.