“Carlo is another Francisco,” said Aci Digital – a Portuguese agency of Ewtn News – Fr. Fábio Vieira, from Corumbá, in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul, who lived with the Acutis family in Asís.
For him, one of the greatest promoters in Brazil of devotion in Brazil to the saint, “Carlo Acutis updates the Franciscan charism in our time in a very beautiful way.”
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Blessed Carlo Acutis, who will be canonized on April 27 during the Jubilee of Teenagers, has a connection with San Francisco and Assisi. He was buried in the cemetery of the Italian city and, subsequently, transferred to a chapel in the Sanctuary of the dispossession, where San Francisco left everything, even the clothes of his body, to follow Jesus.
According to Fábio, Francisco de Asís was the inspiration of Carlo, who also “stripped his wealth”, but “in another format.”
“Carlo caused his family to give meaning to his wealth. Carlo did not need to take off his clothes and give them to his father, but made his parents find a sense of wealth,” said Fr. Fábio, a close friend of the Acutis family.
He met Antonia Salzano, Carlo Acutis’s mother, in 2012 and since then visited her every year. In January 2020, Antonia invited him to stay at home to study Italian. He accepted, but in March, with the beginning of the Covid-19 Pandemia and the general confinement, Fr. Fábio ended in quarantine at the Acutis family house and lived with them for a year. It was from this experience that he knew the details of the life of the saint and was inspired to spread his devotion to Brazil.
Based on the stories he heard when interacting with Carlo’s family, the priest affirms that the adolescent, “is more Franciscan than many Franciscans” and “it is natural that today those who did not know Francisco know him through Carlo, because he updated the charism.”
Antonia Salzano had already talked about Carlo’s relationship with Assisi in a colloquium organized by the Diocese of Asist Umbra-Gualdo Tadino in the days prior to her beatification, which was on October 10, 2020.
“Carlo had great devotion to San Francisco, the Eucharistic Holy, the Holy of the Community, the Christological Saint,” said Antonia. “Carlo said he wanted to be holy, but not as San Francisco, because San Francisco was very difficult to imitate.”
According to her, Carlo took Assisi “in his heart” and said it was the city “where he felt happier.”
Antonia said that her son also had a special sensitivity towards the poor: “Near our house there was a young man who slept in the street and Carlo took food and gave him money.”
“It is no accident that Carlo’s mortal remains are in the place where Francisco stripped, in the Sanctuary of the dispossession. This is not chance. He says much,” concluded Fr. Fábio Vieira.
Nathália Queiroz
I have been writing for ACI Digital for eight years and since 2023 I am a correspondent in Brazil of the news Ewtn News. I am certified in Spanish by the Cervantes Institute. I have experience writing religious content for Catholic media in Portuguese and Spanish and translating religious websites. I am married, I have three children and I have been a catechist for more than 15 years. I write from Petropolis, in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil).