[250 years ago this week, Elizabeth Ann Seton was born in New York City. The first US-born Saint, Seton is one of the most famous individual examples of an American Catholic, so this week I’ll analyze her and other American Catholic histories!]
[NB. I’m
stretching the limits of AmericanStudying with today’s blog subject, as
he was born in England and lived most of his tragically brief life in Italy. But
his maternal great-grandmother
was from New York City, and plus my wife thoughtfully suggested this excellent conclusion
to the week’s series so I’m going with it!]
On what’s familiar
about the young man likely
to be the newest Saint, what’s new, and what’s especially complicated.
1)
Saintly Simplifications: I’m quite sure that
the childhood stories told about any individual who ended up canonized as a Catholic
Saint would read like a fairy tale, but it’s particularly striking to read such
saintly simplifications for a kid who
lived from 1991 to 2006. My personal favorite such sentence from Acutis’ Wikipedia page is
definitely, “Also an animal lover, he became very angry when he encountered
young people who trod on lizards.” But a close second, from that same section “Acts
of Kindness,” is, “While at the beach, he used an inflatable boat, snorkel, and
fins to retrieve rubbish in the ocean.” As the father of two young men who care
deeply about both the environment and our animal friends, I don’t doubt that
Acutis also had such views and put them into practice at times; but he was also
a boy, not a saint, and descriptions or details that lean too hard into the
latter make him feel like a constructed persona rather than the real human
being he undoubtedly was.
2)
Digital Details: A significant part of Acutis’
real humanity was that he grew up in the internet age, and to my mind the most
interesting details of his life and identity reflect those digital contexts. He
was apparently both drawn
to and skilled at the use of coding and web design programs like Dreamweaver
and Java, and despite passing away at the age of 15 he created two full
websites: first a page for his parish, Milan’s Santa Maria Segreta; and
then, far more fully and tellingly for his future canonization, a site Acutis began
in 2004 and launched
in October 2006 (just days before his death) that catalogued all of the
world’s Eucharistic miracles and Marian apparitions among other Catholic
connections. It stands to reason that the “first
Millenial Saint” (as Acutis is frequently known) would have such digital
details in his biography, but this was clearly a kid who was particularly and
meaningfully interested in the possibilities of linking the internet to
Catholicism.
3)
Church Controversies: Acutis’ story is an
interesting and impressive one, but it is of course far from the most prominent
21st
century story about young people and the Catholic Church. I’m hesitant to
say too much more than that here, both because this has got to be one of the
most fraught subjects I’ve ever included in a post (a competitive list to be
sure) and because I know we’re all already quite familiar with that subject. But
I can’t conclude a series on American Catholicism without acknowledging this
story—which was very much initially uncovered
by American reporters, and has featured countless
American priests and churches—and I have to admit being at least a little
suspicious of the timing of the Vatican’s plans to canonize a teenage boy. Of
course canonization will continue to be a thing for the Catholic Church, and of
course that process will likely include both modern figures and younger people.
But at the very least, we can’t let this inspiring individual draw our
attention away from what is unquestionably the more overarching and significant
story.
August
Recap this weekend,
Ben
PS. What do
you think? Catholic histories or contexts you’d highlight?
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