Baltimore, Md., Nov 17, 2021 / 15:00 pm
Blessed Carlo Acutis will serve as the patron of the first year of a new three-year Eucharistic Revival project the U.S. bishops approved Nov. 17, a designation that entrusts a critical initiative to the intercession of a popular modern Catholic hero known for spreading devotion to the Blessed Sacrament.
Acutis, an English-born Italian Catholic who died in 2006 at age 15 shortly after being diagnosed with leukemia, used his technical prowess as an amateur computer programmer to share information online about Eucharistic miracles. He is the first Catholic from the Millennial generation to be beatified.
Among the sentiments Acutis shared online is his testimony that “the more often we receive the Eucharist, the more we will become like Jesus, so that on this earth we will have a foretaste of heaven."
That same message is at the heart of the bishops’ Eucharist campaign, which was endorsed Wednesday during the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ annual fall assembly in Baltimore. Patrons for the other years of the campaign were not announced.