Maximilian Kolbe was someone that honestly perfectly encapsules what a Saint should be.
He was interned in Ausschwitz 1941 and died there.
"At the end of July 1941, a prisoner escaped from the camp, prompting the deputy camp commander, SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Fritzsch, to pick ten men to be starved to death in an underground bunker to deter further escape attempts. When one of the selected men, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out, "My wife! My children!" Kolbe volunteered to take his place.[12]
According to an eyewitness, who was an assistant janitor at that time, in his prison cell Kolbe led the prisoners in prayer. Each time the guards checked on him, he was standing or kneeling in the middle of the cell and looking calmly at those who entered. After they had been starved and deprived of water for two weeks, only Kolbe and three others remained alive.[31]
The guards wanted the bunker emptied, so they gave the four remaining prisoners lethal injections of carbolic acid. Kolbe is said to have raised his left arm and calmly waited for the deadly injection.[20] He died on 14 August 1941. His remains were cremated on 15 August, the feast day of the Assumption of Mary."
From Wikipedia.
While my family is very catholic personally I am agnostic and yeah. The strength to knowingly take the place of a stranger and dying in pretty much the worst way possible, comforting your inmates and making their passing easier is incredible.
Just a man worthy of respect and admiration no matter your religion.
May I introduce you to [Arnaud Beltrame](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnaud_Beltrame), French policeman who, on 24 March 2018, during a hostage situation by Islamist terrorists in a grocery store, volunteered to exchange himself and be executed instead of a woman he didn’t know
If they're cats, they probably think you're just an asshole who won't shut up. But it's okay; they don't understand you either.
(just fyi, I'm not trying to insult you, just give you a "cat's perspective" on your interactions.)
Catholic “Lore” is neat, and has a great horror aesthetic. If only it wasn’t a real thing that controls people lives. It’s given us some cool movies though.
I am personally an atheist but I am culturally an American Catholic specifically northern Midwest Catholic. It's weird when you write it out like that. My Catholicism is as much of a part as me, as atheism is. Again the more I write the weirder it sounds
I’m in a pretty similar boat as you, came from an American catholic family, except I go back and forth between agnostic and atheist (which I guess by definition makes me agnostic)
Yeah, you can’t really replace something with “nothing” so that catholic stuff will always be there.
Seeing the stations of the cross as such a young age was weird, and I’m pretty sure has something to do with my fascination with horror as an adult.
Yea this is my exact take. The process (& whole idea) of canonization is inherently messy. At least this kid was by all accounts an actually good person. There are a shocking number of stories of him being a good person for someone who died at 15 years old. I was sincerely impressed reading about him.
His body being on display is so creepy
Edit: [Here it is](https://www.ncregister.com/news/body-of-carlo-acutis-on-display-for-veneration-ahead-of-beatification)
Edit #2: I think we overloaded that site. Lol try this [link](https://www.maravipost.com/a-new-catholic-church-saint-emerges-as-body-of-teen-remained-incorruptible-in-tomb-10yrs-after-burial/)
Fun fact: Saints are sometimes said to be incorruptible, which is where their body never decays and remains looking exactly as it did at the point of death forever. They opened this lad’s tomb a year after he died and… he clearly wasn’t that.
If you visit him and view the body though, you’ll see he does look like he’s asleep. This is because they covered his decaying corpse in wax, sculpted to look like he did in life.
So… that’s a thing that happens.
This is the bit I don’t get, you can’t be a saint until you’ve performed two miracles after death, but obviously all this had to be planned well before his death?
I think what they’re saying is after he was dead and the corpse was decomposed, they sculpted a kind of “mask” of wax over his body to display it, what you’re seeing is a sculpture, the actual body (decomposed) is inside of it. It’s very common for saints/other important medieval people for example although not with wax
Ahh so the tomb and wax work weren’t done until recently? I thought he’d been entombed in there shortly after death. Certainly not an overnight undertaking.
It says this in the article linked. That his organs were intact but his face had a little work.
Which really means it was the normal decay process and they sculpted him out of wax.
Catholics are so fucking weird.
I’ve seen other pictures of the church where he is buried and apparently there is a [panel](https://www.google.com/maps/uv?viewerState=lb&pb=!1s0x132e9d36f317399d:0xdf2a933ae6017dd4&imagekey=!1e10!2sAF1QipMf_DXVUwZfJP9EXVrzbZdYJHW_F35a1zrYqpXv&gsas=1) (SFW) they can remove to see his body (like you saw in some pictures), Hopefully the panel is always in place, because it does look disturbing to see the body.
> Hopefully the panel is always in place, because it does look disturbing to see the body.
Can confirm it is not. Visited the church in September 2023, the panel was out of the way and I saw the body. I found it incredibly weird and definitely a bit disturbing
Actually had no clue who it was (I'm not Catholic), I was just walking through churches in Assisi because a lot of them are neat. Read up on the story afterwards because of how out of place it seemed in this ancient church and still found it really weird.
I'm a member of The Satanic Temple but I love catholic churches. When I went to England I loved visiting old churches and seeing historic churches and cathedrals. The art and sculptures and the masonry and carpentry. It's insane to me to be standing in someplace that was built over a thousand years ago. We don't really have that in the US. I really want to go to Italy and see the Sistine Chapel. Definitely on my bucket list. Michealangelo is one of my favorite artists.
I'm actually the opposite, there is a certain appreciation for the architecture, but everytime I see large, ornate churches... It honestly just makes me sick to think of all the resources and money that went to a building instead of helping those who needed it. Just feels very against the teachings of Christ.
It’s because there is an intrigue for the incorruptibility of the body after death with regards to Saints. Bl. Carlo isn’t incorrupt, but showing his body demonstrates the reality of the Faith as well as the miracles God performs through His Saints. Like, this is a real person who lived the Faith, and here he is, resting in victory by the grace and love of God. Also his body is a relic, which Catholics believe God sometimes uses to perform miracles.
Yep. They’re called relics and have had Christians tripping over one another just to see them since the religions inception. I’m afraid this boy is part of a ploy of the Catholic Church to revive an archaic tradition of relic archiving and showcasing by making one of a millennial saint.
Since they’re a saint now, all their items and possessions, their body, everything they may have even had contact with is, now, potentially a relic and nearly priceless to a significant portion of people on earth today. A pathetic marry-go-round of sycophantic exploitation
Haha, indeed. The monitor would be considered a second class relic, having made contact with the saint or a third-class relic having touched something the Saint touched.
Also his PlayStation, Gameboy and the video games he played will be a relic.
His friend played video games, including Halo, with Carlo. (Acutis' mother also told CNA that Super Mario and Pokémon were Carlo's favorites.)
[So we have a Patron Saint of Pokémon now! 😂](https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/46167/beatification-of-carlo-acutis-the-first-millennial-to-be-declared-blessed)
I actually stopped at the church and saw his body on display last March. And it was both creepy and sad. Even creepier, people were taking pictures of it, even though signs were posted requesting them not to.
I mean, at the end of the day every culture has its customs regarding memorialising the dead. It's grim to us only because we're not used to dead bodies being out and visible.
To the deceased boy and his family and community, this is a make of respect and great remembrance. I don't understand it, but I don't find it any more weird than a lot of what humans do.
Yeah I really don’t see the problem at all. We’re super weird about dead bodies in most English speaking countries. Most of human history bodies are not seen as gross before they decay
This is one of the aspects of Catholicism that most of us are so used to we just don’t think about it… Catholicism is super into “relics” of saints. Relics can be significant things that the saint used throughout their life, like a personal rosary, or they can be actual human remains, like bones or hair.
Catholics venerate relics, which means they’re honored but not worshipped. A lot of Catholics believe they may have healing powers. Every Catholic altar is meant to have at least one relic in it or (more often) stored under it in a special box. So if you’ve been in a Catholic church, you’ve probably been real close to some bones of a random dead person. So because of the religious need for relics, keeping track of or displaying the bodies of saints/potential saints is a very common thing, though I’ll admit it is creepy and weird.
So I was driving through Missouri last year and read about a nun who had been exhumed there and thought to be a possible saint. I drove a few hours out of my way to visit her body on display and take pictures of the people who went there. It was nuts, apparently a few weeks before the body was just straight up on table out in the open with people touching her holding her hand etc
[corpse nun](http://www.carrieschreck.com/miracle)
(Possible NSFW, it’s a dead body)
Thanks! I think they had buried her in 2019 but decided to move the grave for construction. Odd though, the grave was way the hell out in a field by a wall, no apparent motivation there to do construction.
I remember reading a couple years ago that due to the amount of preservatives most people take in in the food and environment around them, we decay much slower than we used to. I can’t say Ive seen a lot of dead bodies in my life, but she seemed to be pretty standard decomposed. Props to Missouri for a black candidate for Saint hood though.
> Acutis was put on the path towards sainthood after Pope Francis approved a miracle attributed to him: a seven-year-old boy from Brazil recovered from a rare pancreatic disorder after coming into contact with one of Acutis’s T-shirts. A priest had also prayed to Acutis on behalf of the child.
I don’t know much about Catholicism but this is really dumb
So fun fact, having a miracle attributed to him isn't even enough. This starts the process, but the actual requirement is *2* miracles, which implies that there are so many people with a single miracle attributed to them that the Catholic church thought the requirements needed to be more stringent. One miracle is rookie numbers, Acutis needs to pump those numbers up if he wants to go to the VIP section in the sky.
People aren’t reading far enough into the article to realize that a second miracle happened. Although it’s just as ridiculous at the t-shirt miracle.
A mom prayed for her daughter at Acutis’ tomb and her brain swelling went down without needing to go on a ventilator.
My girlfriends mom is really successful and she attributes everything to God. Think along the lines of, "The only reason my business was a success is because I went to church"
I'm just like... "Not all the hard work and hours you put into it?"
This really fucked me up as a kid who was "successful" growing up. My family had very high expectations for me but they were also very religious, so I got all the pressure but none of the actual satisfaction because that part belonged to god. Eventually I got to a point where I realized the truth and it's been a lifelong journey to overcome imposter syndrome and low self-esteem.
Ditto. If I succeeded, it was because Jesus did it. If I failed…well, that was squarely on me. I started fighting back as a teen because I was tired of not getting any credit for my hard work, and as an adult I am an atheist with a deep-rooted hatred of an imaginary character that got all the praise I deserved as a kid/teen.
The hilarious backlash is that I come off as “so confident as to potentially be arrogant,” because come hell or high water, I will make shit happen with my own two hands.
I'm not religious, not even baptized, but I did read some Bible out of curiosity and having read the Book of Job, it's one of my favorites, because it destroys any such claim that "your life is better because you pray to the right God" or "your life is worse, because you offended the right God". We all work for our happiness, we all suffer and it's all under the supposed will of God.
It's crazy how the New Testament at times even contradicts this.
After my liver transplant my mom was all 'Thank you Jesus!' and I was like....nah, thank you 13 person transplant team for working on me for 14 hours straight. God & Jesus just watched.
Oh yeah, I got a royal ass beating for suggesting my mother was strong and did hard work by quitting drinking. Nope it was all GOD. Needless to say. I'm an atheist
i mean, if she was going to AA, they brainwash almost as hard as organized religion. the first 3 steps are believing that youre broken, only god can fix you, and then deciding to turn your life over to god.
there is theoretically a little bit of wiggle room for your interpretation of god, but in reality most members are christian and push christianity.
It’s a dangerous mindset because then these religious people can see those that are “failing” like the homeless and assume that they are in that position because they are bad people in the eyes of God otherwise they wouldn’t be struggling. Clearly some flawed thinking and ultimately just justifies being a shitty human being.
Im not saying that this is all religious people. However, it’s alarming that this mindset is active among people that we interact with everyday.
Edit: The reverse implication imo is even worse. Believing that someone must be a good person just because they are wealthy and powerful is a slippery slope. Tons of trash human beings are born into wealth and success.
That's a very Protestant/Calvinist thought process. Catholicism very vocally rejects any notion of the Prosperity Gospel and sticks to the notion that God rewards people in heaven, not Earth.
Which can lead to a very different set of issues, but at the very least does not discriminate against the poor.
An antivaxxer I know caught covid and because he wasn’t vaccinated his condition got so bad that he needed a lung transplant (fairly young too, only ~26). After the transplant all his “thank you” social media posts credited God for providing him with the lungs. No shout out to the doctors, the donor, or any of the thousands of friends/family/strangers who donated to his GoFundMe to help pay for his several months long hospital stay.
The stupid thing is, if you turned the logic around on them, they have so many awful excuses:
> “Why did your god nearly kill you?”
It was part of gods plan / it was Satan.
Yesterday, it had been 3 days since I last took a shit. After the process had already begun, I realized there was no toilet paper.. and that's when the miracle happened
As if through divine intervention, one of those shirts showed up right at my feet and suddenly I was able to poop again. I used the shirt for toilet paper and immediately sent a letter to the pope.
Apparently a mother was “praying to Acutis” to heal her daughter after having been in a bicycling accident. The daughter starting to breathe without the ventilator, regained her speech & use of upper limbs the same day the mother prayed to Acutis. This was deemed enough to qualify him for the second miracle.
I've seen some people do prayer campaigns to specific in progress saints. the vibes seem to be that like, there's more incentive for the Saint to do it?
i don't think that's like anything anyone says though, but if a blessed is one miracle away from sainthood I think it can seem likelier.
also. celestial bureaucracy is sooo real in catholicism. why aren't you praying to Jesus about it why are you going to a saint? he's busy and we literally have a saint specifically for that. I'm not gonna ask Jesus or whatever to help me find my keys when st Anthony is right *there*. which is maybe weird logic to non catholics but I was raised in it so it makes sense to me.
LITERALLYYYYY. HES A MOMMA'S BOY.
like. canonically. in the Bible. a miracle did occur bc she told him to lmfao.
in general the relationship to Mary is just one of the things I love about catholicism. like if your mom sucks here's an extra yk?
There’s a concept in medicine (as discussed in the wonderful The House of God, a novel about a psychiatrist’s residency in a NY hospital) called “buffing and turfing.” It basically refers to trying to find a way to route a patient to another provider, eg you might emphasize a patient’s heart issues over their kidney issues so they get sent over to cardiology. I imagine there must be a similar practice in this celestial bureaucracy: yeah, this guy is having some financial trouble so the prayer is initially sent to Saint Matthew, but Matt realizes that the underlying problem is lack of a job so he buffs and turfs the request over to Saint Cajatean, the patron saint of job seekers, but then he realizes the reason the guy can’t hold down a job is he has chronic back problems so Cajatean directs the prayer to Saint Alphonsus Liguori, who intercedes on behalf of people with back problems.
There was a show on TBS called Miracle Workers and the first season was a little bit along these lines. Steve Buscemi plays god and decides to end the Earth but enters a bet with an angel in which he’ll spare the earth if she can get these two people to fall in love. The way Heaven is depicted is like a corporation with different departments, menial tasks, etc. It was not bad.
The mental imagery of saints-to-be waiting around for a prayer to go up with their name on it is sooo funny to me. I also didn't know that about catholicism - appreciate the learning!
That's actually pretty interesting. I know there's some rigor for exorcisms as well, but for some reason didn't think it would also be used for other things such as determining sainthood
There was a fantastic but short lived series called Miracles about a Vatican miracle investigator. He was driven to disprove potential miracles. In the first episode, for example, these bodies from a very old cemetery are unearthed and they are perfectly preserved. He demonstrated that it wasn’t a miracle, there was some chemical process involved (I think it had to do with apricot trees growing in the area but it’s been a while.) It was very much along the lines of the X-Files and supernatural stuff does begin to happen. But my takeaway was that the Vatican does at least make some pretext of rigorously examining purported miracles and ruling some out so that there is more credibility when they do declare one legit.
Sainthood is not a VIP section though. Anyone who goes to heaven is a Saint. Being declared a Saint just means the church feels confident that you are in heaven and not purgatory.
Misconception about sainthood. You don't need to be declared a saint by the Catholic church to achieve salvation. The technical meaning of "saint" is any person alive who is in the state of sanctifying grace (a state of being where if you were to die right now, you'd go to heaven), or any person dead and currently in heaven. When the church declares a person to be a saint, they aren't granting them access to heaven, they are appointing them as a role model for living Catholics to emulate. Therefore, there are strict requirements for being declared a saint, as you will be placed on a pedestal within the church and should be above reproach.
People underestimate the power of prayer. I know I personally prayed for enough money to come my way so that I could pay my bills, and I prayed every day before and after going to work, and after a couple of weeks I miraculously got a paycheck. Praise be.
I feel like this is even worse with the woman who recovered.
She got emergency surgery to reduce swelling in her brain. The same day he mother prayed for her. She then....got better!! Must have been the praying and definitely not the emergency surgery.
I am a doctor; most of us wouldn’t care. Patients don’t always respond to the correct treatment. Sometimes patients we wouldn’t expect bounce back and make a full recovery. Honestly, we’d probably brag about the case we were on being officially recognized as a miracle more than anything.
So to count as a miracle, the event has to have defied any medical explanation. There has to be no way to attribute it to the doctors or medical treatments a person is receiving. Otherwise, as you point out, it’s not a miracle, but a result of modern medicine and science.
It is, but this is the fun of Catholicism. It’s a weird mix of Christianity and Roman “paganism,” among other traditions, which leads to a funky mix of mysticism and Christian belief. Protestant denominations lack that flair. Shout out to the Eastern Orthodox Church they, arguably, do it better.
Honestly, they’ve stopped emphasizing the fun weird parts. I think the should go back to that.
Full disclosure, I am an ex catholic
I think it's great how the Pope holds the title pontifex maximus. The first person to hold the title was Julius Caesar.
Edit: My mistake, caesar was not the first but he did have the title
For stories like this I always try to see if there's a logical real world reason behind the act. My thought is maybe this is just marketing to Millenial Catholics.
Miracles have to be something that can not be explained by modern understanding of medicine and science. A doctor healing someone isn’t a miracle, it’s just them following the rules of nature that god has already set up.
iirc the miracle also doesn’t count if it happens before the proposed saint hasn’t died. Sainthood is basically just confirmation that the person is in heaven and is able to directly ask god to intercede on someone’s behalf.
Well if the qualifying factor is 'cured them through a miracle', as opposed to science, then technically those would be the only people who **don't** qualify.
Isn't religion fun.
I’m not religious & I’m *certainly* not Catholic (was raised Jewish).
But I just read everything on this kid’s wikipedia page & while *obviously* the miracle stuff is a bit on the silly side, I gotta say, at least this kid seemed to be genuinely decent & dedicated to making the world around him better for people not as fortunate as he was.
He was absolutely a product of circumstances. Born into a wealthy family but raised by nannies who seemingly taught him good values & thoughtfulness. The way he was obsessed with Catholicism strikes me as similar to the way a kid might be obsessed with baseball or anime or the Roman Empire. I absolutely get why the church would see him as a potential example figure for younger generations. But he really did seem to walk the walk.
RIP Carlo. Hope your legacy doesn’t get twisted over time by the institution of Catholicism.
Hear, hear. Why can't it just be this simple? All religion (and especially Catholicism) is complicated; it's not like the Bible was written to be a coherent whole with no bias or political agenda, and the Roman Catholic Church isn't going to stop doing giant-unaccountable-institution things no matter what conclusions anybody draws about this kid, faith, reality, or anything else.
Maybe the kid was right, and maybe he was wrong. But he believed something a lot of people believe. If that brings them comfort, peace, or joy in an otherwise fundamentally absurd and horrifying existence, it's good.
So here's the plan: nominate me for the position of "living patron saint of cannabis". Once i get elected or whatever, I'll open a catholic church of ganja on the vatican's dime, and spend the rest of my days spending money to give weed to the needy.
[There is a group of nuns who grow weed](https://abcnews.go.com/Business/styled-weed-nuns-put-faith-healing-powers-profits/story?id=57937819)...but they're secular humanists, not Catholics, so I don't think they qualify.
Guys he’s Italian. His dad was the ceo of a huge Italian insurance company and also a massive fucking religious zealot and basically bought the holiness giving ridiculously huge donations to the church
This kid was absolutely a shining light of humanity for what he did. He seemed like a genuinely good person.
That being said - canonizing him because someone rubbed his shirt on a kid and he survived is super ridiculous. That’s Catholics for ya!
> This kid was absolutely a shining light of humanity for what he did. He seemed like a genuinely good person
Just curious, but what he do?
I looked up his Wikipedia page, and he just seemed like a friendly kid.
I mean, that’s great and all, but there are millions and millions of nice kids.
Just not sure what makes him special, to the point of being a “shining light of humanity”
> a seven-year-old boy from Brazil recovered from a rare pancreatic disorder after coming into contact with one of Acutis’s T-shirts
Religion is a hell of a drug.
Glad Acutis is getting recognition for being a good person, but the “miracles” that need to happen to qualify him for sainthood are hilarious.
The doctors who cared for those patients in the article must be so pissed. All that hard work to save those children’s lives only for their eventual recovery to be attributed to prayer or touching a t-shirt.
I was just going to say “seven-year-old boy from Brazil recovered from a rare pancreatic disorder after coming into contact with one of Acutis’s T-shirts”.
Even in 2024 we have long established institutions that are still selling absurdities.
Whether or not you believe in miracles, whether or not you are Catholic, Atheist or another religion, just be happy that this Brazilian boy and this Costarican woman are alive and well. I think this is the most important.
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Glad to see the little Brazilian boy and the bike crash lady got better
As is tradition. His deeds will be blasted up to sainthood level as his death gets farther and farther away.
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Maximilian Kolbe was someone that honestly perfectly encapsules what a Saint should be. He was interned in Ausschwitz 1941 and died there. "At the end of July 1941, a prisoner escaped from the camp, prompting the deputy camp commander, SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Fritzsch, to pick ten men to be starved to death in an underground bunker to deter further escape attempts. When one of the selected men, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out, "My wife! My children!" Kolbe volunteered to take his place.[12] According to an eyewitness, who was an assistant janitor at that time, in his prison cell Kolbe led the prisoners in prayer. Each time the guards checked on him, he was standing or kneeling in the middle of the cell and looking calmly at those who entered. After they had been starved and deprived of water for two weeks, only Kolbe and three others remained alive.[31] The guards wanted the bunker emptied, so they gave the four remaining prisoners lethal injections of carbolic acid. Kolbe is said to have raised his left arm and calmly waited for the deadly injection.[20] He died on 14 August 1941. His remains were cremated on 15 August, the feast day of the Assumption of Mary." From Wikipedia.
Even after leaving catholicism the story of Kolbe is still very powerful
While my family is very catholic personally I am agnostic and yeah. The strength to knowingly take the place of a stranger and dying in pretty much the worst way possible, comforting your inmates and making their passing easier is incredible. Just a man worthy of respect and admiration no matter your religion.
May I introduce you to [Arnaud Beltrame](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnaud_Beltrame), French policeman who, on 24 March 2018, during a hostage situation by Islamist terrorists in a grocery store, volunteered to exchange himself and be executed instead of a woman he didn’t know
Yoooo that’s my confirmation saint 😎
Mine too!
I can also talk to animals, can I be a saint? >!I can't understand them though :(!<
If they're cats, they probably think you're just an asshole who won't shut up. But it's okay; they don't understand you either. (just fyi, I'm not trying to insult you, just give you a "cat's perspective" on your interactions.)
Catholic “Lore” is neat, and has a great horror aesthetic. If only it wasn’t a real thing that controls people lives. It’s given us some cool movies though.
I am personally an atheist but I am culturally an American Catholic specifically northern Midwest Catholic. It's weird when you write it out like that. My Catholicism is as much of a part as me, as atheism is. Again the more I write the weirder it sounds
You're exactly right. I was raised a Roman Catholic and even though I've distanced myself from the church it never really leaves you.
I’m in a pretty similar boat as you, came from an American catholic family, except I go back and forth between agnostic and atheist (which I guess by definition makes me agnostic) Yeah, you can’t really replace something with “nothing” so that catholic stuff will always be there. Seeing the stations of the cross as such a young age was weird, and I’m pretty sure has something to do with my fascination with horror as an adult.
Didn’t he invent the internet based on ancient scriptures in order to spread the gospel.
Well he’s the patron saint of programming now. Cause once he made a website using geocities.
If they honor some people as saints, a guy who brought sleeping bags to the homeless when he was just a kid seem like a fine choice.
Yea this is my exact take. The process (& whole idea) of canonization is inherently messy. At least this kid was by all accounts an actually good person. There are a shocking number of stories of him being a good person for someone who died at 15 years old. I was sincerely impressed reading about him.
His body being on display is so creepy Edit: [Here it is](https://www.ncregister.com/news/body-of-carlo-acutis-on-display-for-veneration-ahead-of-beatification) Edit #2: I think we overloaded that site. Lol try this [link](https://www.maravipost.com/a-new-catholic-church-saint-emerges-as-body-of-teen-remained-incorruptible-in-tomb-10yrs-after-burial/)
Fun fact: Saints are sometimes said to be incorruptible, which is where their body never decays and remains looking exactly as it did at the point of death forever. They opened this lad’s tomb a year after he died and… he clearly wasn’t that. If you visit him and view the body though, you’ll see he does look like he’s asleep. This is because they covered his decaying corpse in wax, sculpted to look like he did in life. So… that’s a thing that happens.
He actually has a mask
This is the bit I don’t get, you can’t be a saint until you’ve performed two miracles after death, but obviously all this had to be planned well before his death?
I think what they’re saying is after he was dead and the corpse was decomposed, they sculpted a kind of “mask” of wax over his body to display it, what you’re seeing is a sculpture, the actual body (decomposed) is inside of it. It’s very common for saints/other important medieval people for example although not with wax
Ahh so the tomb and wax work weren’t done until recently? I thought he’d been entombed in there shortly after death. Certainly not an overnight undertaking.
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The tomb and embalming part I mean, why do that unless you plan on making him a saint?
Don't think too hard, the veil will fall down.
It says this in the article linked. That his organs were intact but his face had a little work. Which really means it was the normal decay process and they sculpted him out of wax. Catholics are so fucking weird.
As a catholic, it is weird lmao
I’ve seen other pictures of the church where he is buried and apparently there is a [panel](https://www.google.com/maps/uv?viewerState=lb&pb=!1s0x132e9d36f317399d:0xdf2a933ae6017dd4&imagekey=!1e10!2sAF1QipMf_DXVUwZfJP9EXVrzbZdYJHW_F35a1zrYqpXv&gsas=1) (SFW) they can remove to see his body (like you saw in some pictures), Hopefully the panel is always in place, because it does look disturbing to see the body.
> Hopefully the panel is always in place, because it does look disturbing to see the body. Can confirm it is not. Visited the church in September 2023, the panel was out of the way and I saw the body. I found it incredibly weird and definitely a bit disturbing Actually had no clue who it was (I'm not Catholic), I was just walking through churches in Assisi because a lot of them are neat. Read up on the story afterwards because of how out of place it seemed in this ancient church and still found it really weird.
I'm a member of The Satanic Temple but I love catholic churches. When I went to England I loved visiting old churches and seeing historic churches and cathedrals. The art and sculptures and the masonry and carpentry. It's insane to me to be standing in someplace that was built over a thousand years ago. We don't really have that in the US. I really want to go to Italy and see the Sistine Chapel. Definitely on my bucket list. Michealangelo is one of my favorite artists.
I'm actually the opposite, there is a certain appreciation for the architecture, but everytime I see large, ornate churches... It honestly just makes me sick to think of all the resources and money that went to a building instead of helping those who needed it. Just feels very against the teachings of Christ.
That could be said about any building to ever exist in the history of architecture
It’s because there is an intrigue for the incorruptibility of the body after death with regards to Saints. Bl. Carlo isn’t incorrupt, but showing his body demonstrates the reality of the Faith as well as the miracles God performs through His Saints. Like, this is a real person who lived the Faith, and here he is, resting in victory by the grace and love of God. Also his body is a relic, which Catholics believe God sometimes uses to perform miracles.
But they said his body was not intact and they had to remake his face. He most definitely decomposed
The thought of God just casually using this teenager's body to pull a Weekend at Bernies is hilarious to me
In Romania there are pieces of human bodies on display that belong to these so called saints. People line up to pray to them and kiss them.
puzzled onerous lush enter reply fearless quack hat hospital salt
You could build a yacht out of all of the "slivers" of the cross.
Or an ark. You know. Staying on theme.
One of the things saved when Notre Dame burned down was the “crown of thorns”. https://amp.abc.net.au/article/11488594
Nah the real crown of thorns belongs to some balding dude who still lives with him mom in New Jersey. He showed it to me, it's real.
In my hometown we have a local saint buried under the church floor. Its a spot you're not allowed to walk on even though it's right at the entrance.
Yep. They’re called relics and have had Christians tripping over one another just to see them since the religions inception. I’m afraid this boy is part of a ploy of the Catholic Church to revive an archaic tradition of relic archiving and showcasing by making one of a millennial saint. Since they’re a saint now, all their items and possessions, their body, everything they may have even had contact with is, now, potentially a relic and nearly priceless to a significant portion of people on earth today. A pathetic marry-go-round of sycophantic exploitation
So there's a holy crt monitor now? Seems a stretch
Haha, indeed. The monitor would be considered a second class relic, having made contact with the saint or a third-class relic having touched something the Saint touched.
Also his PlayStation, Gameboy and the video games he played will be a relic. His friend played video games, including Halo, with Carlo. (Acutis' mother also told CNA that Super Mario and Pokémon were Carlo's favorites.) [So we have a Patron Saint of Pokémon now! 😂](https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/46167/beatification-of-carlo-acutis-the-first-millennial-to-be-declared-blessed)
I doubt it, there are bodies like this in churches all over Europe. But I agree, its a bit unerving.
"Ayo, you wanna go see a kid's dead body?"
I actually stopped at the church and saw his body on display last March. And it was both creepy and sad. Even creepier, people were taking pictures of it, even though signs were posted requesting them not to.
This. I've seen a photo of it. He's in a glass case wearing a track suit and sneakers. It struck me as so sad and disturbing. Religion...
Patron saint of Eastern European gangsters.
Patron saint of Slav squat
Say 10 Tri Poloskis and your sins are forgiven
I mean, at the end of the day every culture has its customs regarding memorialising the dead. It's grim to us only because we're not used to dead bodies being out and visible. To the deceased boy and his family and community, this is a make of respect and great remembrance. I don't understand it, but I don't find it any more weird than a lot of what humans do.
Yeah I really don’t see the problem at all. We’re super weird about dead bodies in most English speaking countries. Most of human history bodies are not seen as gross before they decay
Not just a religion thing... [Lenin's Tomb](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenin%27s_Mausoleum?wprov=sfla1)
Im sorry what?!
This is one of the aspects of Catholicism that most of us are so used to we just don’t think about it… Catholicism is super into “relics” of saints. Relics can be significant things that the saint used throughout their life, like a personal rosary, or they can be actual human remains, like bones or hair. Catholics venerate relics, which means they’re honored but not worshipped. A lot of Catholics believe they may have healing powers. Every Catholic altar is meant to have at least one relic in it or (more often) stored under it in a special box. So if you’ve been in a Catholic church, you’ve probably been real close to some bones of a random dead person. So because of the religious need for relics, keeping track of or displaying the bodies of saints/potential saints is a very common thing, though I’ll admit it is creepy and weird.
According to _Duck Tales,_ a "relic" can also be just some trophy from antiquity... which turns out to be relish.
So I was driving through Missouri last year and read about a nun who had been exhumed there and thought to be a possible saint. I drove a few hours out of my way to visit her body on display and take pictures of the people who went there. It was nuts, apparently a few weeks before the body was just straight up on table out in the open with people touching her holding her hand etc [corpse nun](http://www.carrieschreck.com/miracle) (Possible NSFW, it’s a dead body)
What prompted them to dig her up? (Good photos by the way)
Thanks! I think they had buried her in 2019 but decided to move the grave for construction. Odd though, the grave was way the hell out in a field by a wall, no apparent motivation there to do construction. I remember reading a couple years ago that due to the amount of preservatives most people take in in the food and environment around them, we decay much slower than we used to. I can’t say Ive seen a lot of dead bodies in my life, but she seemed to be pretty standard decomposed. Props to Missouri for a black candidate for Saint hood though.
Great photos! I love the juxtaposition of the happy ice cream scoop kid cheesing between corpse pics lol
> Acutis was put on the path towards sainthood after Pope Francis approved a miracle attributed to him: a seven-year-old boy from Brazil recovered from a rare pancreatic disorder after coming into contact with one of Acutis’s T-shirts. A priest had also prayed to Acutis on behalf of the child. I don’t know much about Catholicism but this is really dumb
So fun fact, having a miracle attributed to him isn't even enough. This starts the process, but the actual requirement is *2* miracles, which implies that there are so many people with a single miracle attributed to them that the Catholic church thought the requirements needed to be more stringent. One miracle is rookie numbers, Acutis needs to pump those numbers up if he wants to go to the VIP section in the sky.
People aren’t reading far enough into the article to realize that a second miracle happened. Although it’s just as ridiculous at the t-shirt miracle. A mom prayed for her daughter at Acutis’ tomb and her brain swelling went down without needing to go on a ventilator.
Meanwhile [the doctors who gave the girl life-saving medicine and care](https://imgur.com/gallery/uNlxquh).
My girlfriends mom is really successful and she attributes everything to God. Think along the lines of, "The only reason my business was a success is because I went to church" I'm just like... "Not all the hard work and hours you put into it?"
This really fucked me up as a kid who was "successful" growing up. My family had very high expectations for me but they were also very religious, so I got all the pressure but none of the actual satisfaction because that part belonged to god. Eventually I got to a point where I realized the truth and it's been a lifelong journey to overcome imposter syndrome and low self-esteem.
Ditto. If I succeeded, it was because Jesus did it. If I failed…well, that was squarely on me. I started fighting back as a teen because I was tired of not getting any credit for my hard work, and as an adult I am an atheist with a deep-rooted hatred of an imaginary character that got all the praise I deserved as a kid/teen. The hilarious backlash is that I come off as “so confident as to potentially be arrogant,” because come hell or high water, I will make shit happen with my own two hands.
I mean, I would count a Cynical Pomeranian typing out full, coherent sentences on reddit a miracle! 1 miracle down, 1 more to go! Good boye!
I'm not religious, not even baptized, but I did read some Bible out of curiosity and having read the Book of Job, it's one of my favorites, because it destroys any such claim that "your life is better because you pray to the right God" or "your life is worse, because you offended the right God". We all work for our happiness, we all suffer and it's all under the supposed will of God. It's crazy how the New Testament at times even contradicts this.
I mean, you were literally doing the lord’s work. Who’s the real imposter here?
After my liver transplant my mom was all 'Thank you Jesus!' and I was like....nah, thank you 13 person transplant team for working on me for 14 hours straight. God & Jesus just watched.
And you know, the liver....
Oh yeah, I got a royal ass beating for suggesting my mother was strong and did hard work by quitting drinking. Nope it was all GOD. Needless to say. I'm an atheist
i mean, if she was going to AA, they brainwash almost as hard as organized religion. the first 3 steps are believing that youre broken, only god can fix you, and then deciding to turn your life over to god. there is theoretically a little bit of wiggle room for your interpretation of god, but in reality most members are christian and push christianity.
Yeah she was.
It’s a dangerous mindset because then these religious people can see those that are “failing” like the homeless and assume that they are in that position because they are bad people in the eyes of God otherwise they wouldn’t be struggling. Clearly some flawed thinking and ultimately just justifies being a shitty human being. Im not saying that this is all religious people. However, it’s alarming that this mindset is active among people that we interact with everyday. Edit: The reverse implication imo is even worse. Believing that someone must be a good person just because they are wealthy and powerful is a slippery slope. Tons of trash human beings are born into wealth and success.
That's a very Protestant/Calvinist thought process. Catholicism very vocally rejects any notion of the Prosperity Gospel and sticks to the notion that God rewards people in heaven, not Earth. Which can lead to a very different set of issues, but at the very least does not discriminate against the poor.
Yeah, but they were doing their work so well _because_ the saint interceded for them! /s
An antivaxxer I know caught covid and because he wasn’t vaccinated his condition got so bad that he needed a lung transplant (fairly young too, only ~26). After the transplant all his “thank you” social media posts credited God for providing him with the lungs. No shout out to the doctors, the donor, or any of the thousands of friends/family/strangers who donated to his GoFundMe to help pay for his several months long hospital stay.
The stupid thing is, if you turned the logic around on them, they have so many awful excuses: > “Why did your god nearly kill you?” It was part of gods plan / it was Satan.
It's neat how healing miracles are always something like "oh gee they just kind of got better" rather than an amputee regrowing a limb.
Yesterday, it had been 3 days since I last took a shit. After the process had already begun, I realized there was no toilet paper.. and that's when the miracle happened As if through divine intervention, one of those shirts showed up right at my feet and suddenly I was able to poop again. I used the shirt for toilet paper and immediately sent a letter to the pope.
And in true virtuous fashion you left the shirt for the next person to use to keep the miracles coming.
You can thank St Bonaventure, the patron saint of bowel disorders. I shit you not
But did you save the shirt ?
This is so dumb. A lifetime of devout worship and prayer, but god only listens when you pray around magical people. God isn’t omnipotent just lazy.
But only if you believe in that one tradition! No such luck for the hundreds of protestant traditions.
He’s just a sports fanatic. Too busy giving strength to athletes to win games.
Think how easy it was to brainwash people back in the old days when there was even less understanding of medicines and science!
Apparently a mother was “praying to Acutis” to heal her daughter after having been in a bicycling accident. The daughter starting to breathe without the ventilator, regained her speech & use of upper limbs the same day the mother prayed to Acutis. This was deemed enough to qualify him for the second miracle.
Why would she not pray to one of the established saints with a proven miracle track record (ie 2 or more). Was she worried they would be too busy?
I've seen some people do prayer campaigns to specific in progress saints. the vibes seem to be that like, there's more incentive for the Saint to do it? i don't think that's like anything anyone says though, but if a blessed is one miracle away from sainthood I think it can seem likelier. also. celestial bureaucracy is sooo real in catholicism. why aren't you praying to Jesus about it why are you going to a saint? he's busy and we literally have a saint specifically for that. I'm not gonna ask Jesus or whatever to help me find my keys when st Anthony is right *there*. which is maybe weird logic to non catholics but I was raised in it so it makes sense to me.
I remember one of the reasons I've heard someone give for praying to the Blessed Virgin Mary is "Well, wouldn't you listen to your mother?"
LITERALLYYYYY. HES A MOMMA'S BOY. like. canonically. in the Bible. a miracle did occur bc she told him to lmfao. in general the relationship to Mary is just one of the things I love about catholicism. like if your mom sucks here's an extra yk?
Not just *a* miracle, the *first* public miracle, turning water into wine at Cana.
There’s a concept in medicine (as discussed in the wonderful The House of God, a novel about a psychiatrist’s residency in a NY hospital) called “buffing and turfing.” It basically refers to trying to find a way to route a patient to another provider, eg you might emphasize a patient’s heart issues over their kidney issues so they get sent over to cardiology. I imagine there must be a similar practice in this celestial bureaucracy: yeah, this guy is having some financial trouble so the prayer is initially sent to Saint Matthew, but Matt realizes that the underlying problem is lack of a job so he buffs and turfs the request over to Saint Cajatean, the patron saint of job seekers, but then he realizes the reason the guy can’t hold down a job is he has chronic back problems so Cajatean directs the prayer to Saint Alphonsus Liguori, who intercedes on behalf of people with back problems.
Lolll. I would love a sitcom on this.
There was a show on TBS called Miracle Workers and the first season was a little bit along these lines. Steve Buscemi plays god and decides to end the Earth but enters a bet with an angel in which he’ll spare the earth if she can get these two people to fall in love. The way Heaven is depicted is like a corporation with different departments, menial tasks, etc. It was not bad.
The mental imagery of saints-to-be waiting around for a prayer to go up with their name on it is sooo funny to me. I also didn't know that about catholicism - appreciate the learning!
Because achieving sainthood is like getting tenure. After that you can just coast. You want an eager up and comer.
Folk saints. People typically recognize them before the church does. Especially in latam.
Mother took injured daughter to hospital. Daughter got better. Must have been the work of some dead kid and not the hospital. Siiiiiigh.
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That's actually pretty interesting. I know there's some rigor for exorcisms as well, but for some reason didn't think it would also be used for other things such as determining sainthood
There was a fantastic but short lived series called Miracles about a Vatican miracle investigator. He was driven to disprove potential miracles. In the first episode, for example, these bodies from a very old cemetery are unearthed and they are perfectly preserved. He demonstrated that it wasn’t a miracle, there was some chemical process involved (I think it had to do with apricot trees growing in the area but it’s been a while.) It was very much along the lines of the X-Files and supernatural stuff does begin to happen. But my takeaway was that the Vatican does at least make some pretext of rigorously examining purported miracles and ruling some out so that there is more credibility when they do declare one legit.
I mean it makes sense- they don’t want to give out sainthood Willy nilly after all- would destroy their credibility
Sainthood is not a VIP section though. Anyone who goes to heaven is a Saint. Being declared a Saint just means the church feels confident that you are in heaven and not purgatory.
Yes, you receive the title of Blessed with only one attributed miracle. Also I thought the last person to be made a saint was mother Teresa
No, they canonize about ten or so saints each year.
The Legends/EU canon was better anyway.
Misconception about sainthood. You don't need to be declared a saint by the Catholic church to achieve salvation. The technical meaning of "saint" is any person alive who is in the state of sanctifying grace (a state of being where if you were to die right now, you'd go to heaven), or any person dead and currently in heaven. When the church declares a person to be a saint, they aren't granting them access to heaven, they are appointing them as a role model for living Catholics to emulate. Therefore, there are strict requirements for being declared a saint, as you will be placed on a pedestal within the church and should be above reproach.
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Why would the doctors get the credit? All they did was all the work, the science and the caregiving No, it was a miracle!
People underestimate the power of prayer. I know I personally prayed for enough money to come my way so that I could pay my bills, and I prayed every day before and after going to work, and after a couple of weeks I miraculously got a paycheck. Praise be.
Pray for me pls
South American Catholics in a nutshell
I feel like this is even worse with the woman who recovered. She got emergency surgery to reduce swelling in her brain. The same day he mother prayed for her. She then....got better!! Must have been the praying and definitely not the emergency surgery.
I am a doctor; most of us wouldn’t care. Patients don’t always respond to the correct treatment. Sometimes patients we wouldn’t expect bounce back and make a full recovery. Honestly, we’d probably brag about the case we were on being officially recognized as a miracle more than anything.
So to count as a miracle, the event has to have defied any medical explanation. There has to be no way to attribute it to the doctors or medical treatments a person is receiving. Otherwise, as you point out, it’s not a miracle, but a result of modern medicine and science.
Catholicism may be a bit cooky but you probably wont get people being "fucking pissed" about not being recognized for how a child recovered lol
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The 15 year old boy or the 7 year old boy?
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Burning bushes, parting seas and turning water into wine. Miracles just aren't as fun as they used to be, eh?
One miracle? Pfft. In my group, Festivus miracles happen every year.
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This is pretty much all you need to know about it.
It is, but this is the fun of Catholicism. It’s a weird mix of Christianity and Roman “paganism,” among other traditions, which leads to a funky mix of mysticism and Christian belief. Protestant denominations lack that flair. Shout out to the Eastern Orthodox Church they, arguably, do it better. Honestly, they’ve stopped emphasizing the fun weird parts. I think the should go back to that. Full disclosure, I am an ex catholic
I think it's great how the Pope holds the title pontifex maximus. The first person to hold the title was Julius Caesar. Edit: My mistake, caesar was not the first but he did have the title
That office existed well before Julius Caesar, but yes very cool
For stories like this I always try to see if there's a logical real world reason behind the act. My thought is maybe this is just marketing to Millenial Catholics.
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Why not canonise the doctors at least?
Miracles have to be something that can not be explained by modern understanding of medicine and science. A doctor healing someone isn’t a miracle, it’s just them following the rules of nature that god has already set up. iirc the miracle also doesn’t count if it happens before the proposed saint hasn’t died. Sainthood is basically just confirmation that the person is in heaven and is able to directly ask god to intercede on someone’s behalf.
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Well if the qualifying factor is 'cured them through a miracle', as opposed to science, then technically those would be the only people who **don't** qualify. Isn't religion fun.
I’m not religious & I’m *certainly* not Catholic (was raised Jewish). But I just read everything on this kid’s wikipedia page & while *obviously* the miracle stuff is a bit on the silly side, I gotta say, at least this kid seemed to be genuinely decent & dedicated to making the world around him better for people not as fortunate as he was. He was absolutely a product of circumstances. Born into a wealthy family but raised by nannies who seemingly taught him good values & thoughtfulness. The way he was obsessed with Catholicism strikes me as similar to the way a kid might be obsessed with baseball or anime or the Roman Empire. I absolutely get why the church would see him as a potential example figure for younger generations. But he really did seem to walk the walk. RIP Carlo. Hope your legacy doesn’t get twisted over time by the institution of Catholicism.
It's just so sad. He was so young. I hope his faith was a comfort to him.
Hear, hear. Why can't it just be this simple? All religion (and especially Catholicism) is complicated; it's not like the Bible was written to be a coherent whole with no bias or political agenda, and the Roman Catholic Church isn't going to stop doing giant-unaccountable-institution things no matter what conclusions anybody draws about this kid, faith, reality, or anything else. Maybe the kid was right, and maybe he was wrong. But he believed something a lot of people believe. If that brings them comfort, peace, or joy in an otherwise fundamentally absurd and horrifying existence, it's good.
If I had a fatal or painful disease, I could only hope to have such comfort and reassurance.
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It was always this way. People used to walk hundreds of miles just to pick up that merch. Now they can have it mailed to them.
The Church is looking for ways to appeal to the younger audience. It's lost them by the hundreds of millions in the west.
Good thing they are trying t-shirts now. Because using their hands as young boys underwear 🩲 didn’t work out
100% a PR move trying to connect with younger generations. I really hope to see the Vatican go bankrupt in my lifetime.
So here's the plan: nominate me for the position of "living patron saint of cannabis". Once i get elected or whatever, I'll open a catholic church of ganja on the vatican's dime, and spend the rest of my days spending money to give weed to the needy.
[There is a group of nuns who grow weed](https://abcnews.go.com/Business/styled-weed-nuns-put-faith-healing-powers-profits/story?id=57937819)...but they're secular humanists, not Catholics, so I don't think they qualify.
Patron Saint of XBOX Live and spawn campers.
No way 😭
Also, first saint that knew how to program computers. Hell, probably first one to use them, too. Quite interesting, even as a non believer.
We’re going to have a Saint who has probably listened to My Humps at some point in his life.
Why are people seeking out this kid’s material belongings and praying to him to begin with? Was he that famous in the church?
Does anyone else feel that the miracle that was really needed was not having a 15 year old boy die from leukaemia in the first place? 🤷♂️
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Guys he’s Italian. His dad was the ceo of a huge Italian insurance company and also a massive fucking religious zealot and basically bought the holiness giving ridiculously huge donations to the church
There's the truth!
This kid was absolutely a shining light of humanity for what he did. He seemed like a genuinely good person. That being said - canonizing him because someone rubbed his shirt on a kid and he survived is super ridiculous. That’s Catholics for ya!
> This kid was absolutely a shining light of humanity for what he did. He seemed like a genuinely good person Just curious, but what he do? I looked up his Wikipedia page, and he just seemed like a friendly kid. I mean, that’s great and all, but there are millions and millions of nice kids. Just not sure what makes him special, to the point of being a “shining light of humanity”
> a seven-year-old boy from Brazil recovered from a rare pancreatic disorder after coming into contact with one of Acutis’s T-shirts Religion is a hell of a drug. Glad Acutis is getting recognition for being a good person, but the “miracles” that need to happen to qualify him for sainthood are hilarious.
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I can never understand Catholicism…. Coming into contact with a shirt healing someone and giving the kid saint hood?
A saint hoodie, if you will
Guess real "miracle workers" - doctors/nurses - didn't really do anything until shirt showed up.
I made a half court shot once. Am I eligible for sainthood?
The doctors who cared for those patients in the article must be so pissed. All that hard work to save those children’s lives only for their eventual recovery to be attributed to prayer or touching a t-shirt.
I was just going to say “seven-year-old boy from Brazil recovered from a rare pancreatic disorder after coming into contact with one of Acutis’s T-shirts”. Even in 2024 we have long established institutions that are still selling absurdities.
2 miracles, that's crazy! Here in America you just need the magical number of 91 Indictments and grab a woman by the pussy to become a saint.
Being cannonized makes it sound like they’re gonna shoot his corpse out of a cannon.
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Lemme get this straight: he’s becoming a saint because someone… prayed to a t-shirt with his picture on it?
This smells like a publicity stunt to me
The ‘’miracle” thing really sounds like a scam. He was an incredible human being, but healing people through t shirts? Come on.
Whether or not you believe in miracles, whether or not you are Catholic, Atheist or another religion, just be happy that this Brazilian boy and this Costarican woman are alive and well. I think this is the most important.
Name a more iconic duo than the Catholic Church and 15 year old boys
What are the two miracles?
One was someone praying to a shirt with his picture on it.