In Via
Planning a trip? Or just on the pilgrimage of daily living? We are the podcast at the intersection of faith and travel, assisting you on the journey to encounter Christ. Hear stories, discover travel tips, and learn more about our Catholic faith. Along the way, we’ll show you that if God seeks to meet us in Jerusalem, Rome, Lourdes, Mexico City, or Santiago, he also wants to encounter you - right there in your car, on your run, or in the middle of your workday.
In Via
A Journey with Carlo: The Millennial Saint of Hope with Katie Prejean McGrady
Step into the inspiring world of Carlo Acutis, a modern-day saint whose life story beautifully intertwines faith and technology. In this episode, we explore how Carlo became a beacon of hope and relatability for youth today. With heartfelt stories shared by our guest, Katie Prejean McGrady, we discuss how Carlo exemplifies the joy of living one's faith authentically in the ever-evolving landscape of modern life.
Through powerful anecdotes and insightful dialogue, we shine a light on his exceptional dedication to the Eucharist, his groundbreaking use of the internet for spreading kindness and faith, and the profound impact he has on listeners of all ages. Discover why Carlo’s approach resonates so deeply with today’s youth and how his legacy encourages us all to embody kindness in our interactions. As we navigate the complexities of a connected world, Carlo’s story serves as a reminder that holiness can be found in our ordinary lives.
Join the conversation and consider how you can witness to hope just as Carlo did. Don’t forget to subscribe, share, and leave a review to help spread the inspiring message of this modern saint!
Welcome to In Via, the podcast where we're navigating the pilgrimage of life. We are all in via on the way and we are learning a lot as we go. I'm your host, joan Watson. Join me as we listen to stories, discover travel tips and learn more about our Catholic faith. Along the way, we'll see that if God seeks to meet us in Jerusalem, rome or Santiago, he also wants to encounter you right there in your car, on your run or in the middle of your workday. I am joined today by Katie Prejean-McGrady, who's a wife, mom, award-winning author, international speaker, podcaster and daily radio show host. She is here to talk to us about her good friend, carlo Akoudis, who's going to be canonized in this Jubilee Year of Hope. Good morning, I never know like. Do you just start talking?
Speaker 2:I don't know, I always hate the beginning of podcasts, like because it's not morning for most of the people. No, who are listening to it? They're not.
Speaker 1:No, it's good evening, good afternoon, but anyway we're here to talk about Carlo and Katie. I know you love Carlo and I just want to hear your passion, I just want to hear why you love him. But can you start by talking about about his life, because I think a lot of people know about him. But I think a lot of people know kind of the hot you know things about and I would rather that you kind of present who is Carlo and like why? Why are we even talking about his canonization?
Speaker 2:Who wasn't Carlo is the, the consummate millennial symbol of hope. I think, you know, as a 35 year old, somebody made it, like one of us made it, despite the fact that we lived at the time of the millennium change, and, like you know, a boy who loved John Paul II and saw the Benedict XVI papacy, and just a young man. So I love Carlo very personally for, I think, three reasons. I was thinking about it before we hopped on. He does, I think, give that millennial hopefulness of holiness. I really love the way Carlo he's known as kind of like the web designer, media guy, but he was a little ahead of his time in recognizing now something that the Vatican says the internet is a culture, it is a place of encounter, and he really saw that for what it was decades before it would become what it is, and he was kind. I think Carlo's kindness is something that really should be emphasized. His mom talks about this a lot. So carlo was born into this upper middle class family. I mean he was born in london and they moved to milan. He went to really good schools. He had a nanny. I mean this was not a kid who suffered in terms of, you know, not having his favorite toys or his favorite clothes or his favorite foods, and he was an only child and I always I always emphasize this like carlo did not have siblings while he was alive. His siblings were born four years after he died, in some ways kind of his first miracle that his mom, after struggling with secondary infertility, they were able to conceive twins. So Carlo was kind of and this isn't talked about a whole lot he wasn't a depressed kid, but he was a lonely kid at times. He didn't have siblings. He took a liking to video games because it gave him the chance to play against other people or to, like invite friends over to his house after school. He was incredibly gentle and kind with his, his playmates and his classmates. There's this one story his nanny would tell about how like kids would pick on him at school and he would just kind of let them, and it's like he wasn't passive and he wasn't just, oh yeah, like let everybody walk all over me, but more, just, well, they must be angry for some reason. So like, if they have to take it out on me, a kid who really isn't suffering in any other element of his life, then like let them and I. That that's holy. You know, sometimes people write carlo off as the kid in sneakers, with the guy with pokemon cards in his pocket, and yeah, that's the cartoon version of Carlo. But if you really look at his heart, there was a kindness in the way he encountered people and a desire for that to really shine in the work that he did, even as a 15 year old. I mean, he was working for the kingdom and so I've been captivated by his story. He kind of he found me.
Speaker 2:I was doing a test episode of the Katie McGrady show on Sirius XM in August of 2020. It was one hour. We took calls about saints and for some reason, like as I'm Googling saints while I'm live on the air and taking calls, this news alert came on. I mean and truly like I can't explain it other than like Carlo was fiddling on my computer from heaven about his beatification, than like Carlo was fiddling on my computer from heaven about his beatification, which was later that fall being live streamed because of the pandemic. And it's so appropriate that, one, I kind of found him in this accidental way and then, two, got to know him in a global shutdown through the internet, which was the means that he did ministry. So I love the guy.
Speaker 1:You know, when going back to the idea of like, doing ministry through the internet and like this idea of this, we have this digital continent to evangelize. You know there are a lot of people that would say no evangelizations person to person and it has to be in person. And Jesus didn't use the internet. And I mean there's all this criticism that you know that the, the, the technology is impersonal and the gospel is supposed to be personal. And what do you think, especially you who use technology? And well, what do you think Carla would say to that, like, why do you say that he did see the internet and he did use technology as an encounter? I think that's an important word.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I mean, technically, the Sermon on the Mount could have been incredibly impersonal. The guy standing in the back of the crowd is 5,000 people away from Jesus and yet he's still moved by what he hears. The internet is as personal or as impersonal as we make it. I met my husband on Facebook. So like two humans exist because of the internet and they're my children who look like us right. So like the internet is a place of encounter, when these moments of interaction can become substantial, real friendships. And sometimes that exists in a digital space. It's texting, it's calling, it's zooming, it's listening to recorded podcasts, and then it becomes an in-person experience.
Speaker 2:Right, Carlo went to these places, the places of the Eucharistic miracles, to take photos, because he knew a lot of people might not be able to go there and so he wanted to bring them into the encounter he had had. So he saw the internet as in some ways, I think, kind of the modern day Roman forum, the place where we can gather. That then would spark, hopefully, more intimate and personal one-on-one interactions. And so I mean he was very ahead of his time in learning how to code and learning how to craft these websites and even playing the most popular video games that were out there and Pokemon, which is still popular to this day. Surprisingly, I do feel like Carlo would have been like, okay, Pokemon goes a bit much, but he also might've been the kid who could have convinced the Pope to put some Pokemon go characters in St Peter's square, Like I wouldn't have put it past him. So I think he saw it as the launch pad for those intimate encounters.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, I do think Jesus would have used the internet I mean, God is all powerful If he wanted to snuff it out right now, I guess he could. But instead he allows us to do both good and ill along these methods of communication. But ultimately, I think when we keep Carlo in the front of our mind, I play this little game sometimes where I'm like what would Carlo tweet right now? And that usually stops me from tweeting other things, because it's like Carlo would have a lot of self-control and he'd probably have great screen time boundaries when it comes to his phone. But he also would not have been afraid to wade into those waters, because we saw him doing that already with a very rudimentary website now, but at the time was incredibly ahead of better than the Vatican website, right Ahead of its curve in terms of its design and accessibility, and still present and active to this day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we see in the book his mom wrote, we do see that he put boundaries on himself on video games and he had that self-control and we're going to talk about his kindness in a second but he had that kind that, those virtues that enabled him to use this for the good. Um, I love what you you pointed out, because some people might not know that he did go on pilgrimage to these places and and wanted to bring them to other people. So we have this, this boy of wealth that is using I. He traveled extensively and then he wanted to bring that to those who couldn't, but yet he also spurred think about how many people now go to these places because Carlo brought them.
Speaker 1:We went to Lanciano last month and Lanciano, one of the Eucharistic miracles, was Carlo's favorite if you could have a favorite Eucharistic miracle because of the scientific study done around it and we went on pilgrimage and talked about how Carlo brought this to people through their computer screens. Right, we were blessed to go see it, but so we still now go on pilgrimage in the footsteps of Carlo as well. So he inspired that continual learning and continual pilgrimage.
Speaker 2:One of my favorite things from World Youth Day in Portugal was so many people taking pictures in front of the wall where Carlo took a picture. Yes, and kind of like recreating that moment and it's so cool to think that in the 2000s we can do that. I mean you can do that with some of the other saints.
Speaker 2:And my favorite is when somebody does the deep cut where they dress up as St Therese, dressed up as Joan of Arc, for All Saints Day and it's like you get a double whammy right there, like I love the saints of old and I love the unknown and the well-known and the ones whose everybody's kids are named after them. And then you meet that one little nerdy Catholic kid named Athanasius right, and you're like, oh, wow, like your parents went for the deep cut. But I love that, as a 35 year old born in the late 80s, I can look to a kid born in the 90s and say like yeah, he knew the same world I knew and saw it kind of for what it was. You know, carlo died in 05. The iPhone came out in what? 06 07. So he didn't have a smartphone device, he didn't have a selfie cam, he didn't have bluetooth headphones the technology was different. But he absolutely had an AIM account the way that we all had as like 14, 15 year olds. He had a MySpace. Like he knew that this social media world was developing where people could connect and recognized. I got to set some boundaries for this recognized. I can use what my parents are offering to me.
Speaker 2:My favorite story is his dad.
Speaker 2:They offered to take him to the Holy Land and he went.
Speaker 2:No, thank you, I'm good, like I can just go to Mass and on the one hand it's like, oh late Carlo, like you could have gone to the Holy Land, like everybody wants to go to the Holy Land, but also he felt like I can be just as close to Jesus at the parish that I go to daily Mass at, with all these old Italian nonas and these Earistic pilgrimage sites that I can get to by train and and by plane right here in europe, and I love that about him.
Speaker 2:We have no evidence that carlo ever visited the united states, but I feel like he would have absolutely cut it up going to all the different pilgrimage sites here in this country, but also like we can do that and we can walk in those same footsteps in the holy places that we can go. And really he gives us the example and model of just authentically sharing. They weren't professional photos, they weren't even the most like glitzy, glamorous descriptions of these eucharistic miracles. It's a 15 year old kid's writings, and so there is a humility and a fervor and, like you could, he was such an earnest guy and who loved jesus so much that he made a website for him. That should give us all some encouragement that well, if a 15 year old kid can evangelize in that way because he knew what he was good at and he wanted to do it in this way.
Speaker 1:We all can't right, don't let anything stop you don't like you're. You are good enough, you have the words. You you know we could all always learn more, we could always love more, but you, right now, you have what it takes to share the gospel with someone, probably. And don't let yourself be talked out of it, because it's the devil telling you you're not good enough, you're not holy enough, you're not smart enough, you can't write well enough, you can't speak well enough. Yeah, that's false, right.
Speaker 2:I think that's why we call them the Satan sneakers.
Speaker 1:I wear sneakers, you wear sneakers.
Speaker 2:I think that's why little kids are so captivated by him too. Have you noticed this? So I have a seven-year-old and a four-year-old. Carlo was 15 when he died, so like I've always kind of had him in the category of like teenagers love Carlo, and they do. When I give talks to young people they sit up a little straighter when they hear about Blessed Carlo because there is this immediate relatability. But I've been struck in the past year or so pretty much since they announced the canonization was coming last May that little, little kids like my seven-year-old daughter is just captivated by his story and I think it's so appropriate that his canonization is coming during the jubilee of teenagers. And like age is a funny thing. So we say teenagers and I think high school, but like in Italy, like teenagers, like there's going to be like 10 year olds there.
Speaker 2:So like it's a very different and like youth for them is like all the way to the twenties, right. So so I think it's going to be so cool to look around and see families of young ones. Um, we're bringing our family to the canonization in April and, through the grace of God and through some, you know, well-connected people that I'm able to, rose is going to receive her first communion while we're in Rome before the canonization, and it was the most touching thing she said to me on the car ride one morning, completely unprompted. So we drive past a church on the way to school every day and we wave and say, hi, jesus's just like a little way to put jesus in our day without being like them. Thou we're going to do this big, long, drawn out prayer thing while listening to the wicked soundtrack. So we say hi, jesus. And rose goes, mom, when's my first communion? And I said may 10th, daddy's birthday. Um, and it's also mother's day weekend, so it's kind of a double whammy. And it happens to be the anniversary of when we met pope francis last. So it's like just very excited for May 10th.
Speaker 2:And she went oh well, that's after Carlo's canonization. And I said, yeah, it's going to be like two weeks after we get back from Rome. And she went. I just really love to receive Jesus when we celebrate Carlo being with Jesus.
Speaker 2:So I'm crying in the front seat of the van and like, ok, text priests immediately to see what is canonically allowed here. So we get permission from our pastor. He he's like, yep, she seems like she's ready. We talk to the teacher, we talk to the nun at the church, we coordinate some things with friends, and so she's going to receive communion on the thursday before his canonization in assisi, and then we're going to go visit his grave as a family after she's received communion for the first time and then celebrate, you know, this epic party celebrating our boy for his canonization. And this was like we talk about carlo. She's got the comic book we've watched a video like she knows mommy talks about. We've got pictures of him throughout the house like they called him our cousin for a little while because they were confused why we had this italian kid in our home. But there was this, captivated.
Speaker 2:oh, he's like me, like he's buried in a sweatshirt and Nikes and, like Rose, wears a sweatshirt and Nikes and it was completely. She just saw him for what he was and I think that's why, politically, they pushed this through rather quickly, why there's this. We got to do this in the jubilee year because he is such a symbol of hope and I'm so encouraged by the so she shared this with all of her classmates that she's going to get to receive first communion early and the teacher was like can you please bring us some like holy cards?
Speaker 1:or some medals.
Speaker 2:I said don't worry, I'm on it and so because, like the second grade class, loves him. If we could bring them all with us, we totally would, and I just, I love that. It's all ages, it's all generations, but especially this tenderness for little ones. That that I don't know, that Carlo would have anticipated, that would be part of his charism as a saint, but it is so cool to see and I mean it makes sense.
Speaker 1:We look up to people just a little older than us. Sometimes, right, Like when you're in middle school you look up to the high schoolers even the high schoolers that shouldn't be looked up to, Right? And so it makes sense that, like, that's relatable. If I'm a seven year old, I'm probably not going to look up to a 45 year old.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:But this cool teenager and thankfully he's an amazing role model In talking about the Eucharist and his devotion to the Eucharist and building this website can you talk a little bit about his prayer life, because I think sometimes he does get eclipses, just oh well, he was holy because he did this stuff with technology. But can you talk a little bit about, like, his own personal prayer life and maybe something we could imitate there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean the famous phrase of Carlo right, the Eucharist is my highway to heaven, which then, has been lampooned in all these like road trip t-shirts over the years, but I still, I still love it. In fact, I have a. I have a sticker on my desk. I'm looking at it right now. So it's a picture of Carlo. It's got the Eucharistic miracle of Lanciano host next to it, and then that phrase he was so captivated by the fact that Jesus would become flesh, like the Lord would want to dwell in front of us, so he was a big adoration guy and that he would want to dwell within us. And so Carlo made daily mass a huge priority in his life, and so a 14, 15 year old kid, he would walk to school most days. His family was also, you know, they're moderately wealthy, so he had a driver, so, like he would also sometimes be driven to school, and mass would be a priority, either in the morning or in the evening. And if you know anything about the Italian Catholic church, I mean, yes, it's Rome, and so it's the Vatican, so it's the home of the church, but also, like the parishes in Rome are experiencing the same, and and well, not Rome, but across Italy are experiencing the same disaffiliation crisis that we're seeing all over the world. You walk into a parish mass in Milan on a Tuesday morning. It's going to be like 60 and 70 year old grandmas and Carlo, this 15 year old kid Right, and so I love that.
Speaker 2:It was incredibly counter-cultural for him to be so devoted to the mass, especially this desire to bring his friends. So he was involved in a you know, youth ministry program through a parish and like would invite his buddies all the time, and so every youth minister in America and around the world like hey, like Carlo was a youth group kid, like you can, you can play off of that. He would have heard the life team talks. He would have known some contemporary praise and worship. I like to imagine sometimes Carlo would have done trading my sorrows and like he knew the hand motions right, like that was popular all over the world. He knew go, make a difference. And so I think that there's something really cool about this was a kid who recognized I should be close to Jesus the Eucharist is the way to be close to Jesus and then became so captivated by the science of these Eucharistic miracles. We have some of his writings where he talks about his desire to be close to the Lord, his desire for silence, which, again, was an incredibly countercultural thing.
Speaker 2:Kids who had these new devices had these ways to connect over the internet to be able to play games, and Carlo would set these limits for himself and that flowed from his spirituality, that flowed from his prayer life we often talk too about. You know, carlo made this website and he would talk about Jesus with his friends and he was kind. But the first conversions that Carlo inspired were of his parents, because his little boy had this Polish nanny who kind of taught him about Jesus and he was captivated. And in the same way that Zaley and Louis were like, oh, she'll grow out of it with Therese, like his parents were like, oh, like, this is just like religious fanaticism as a child, and then they realized, no, he loves the Lord. Should we be paying attention? Should we love the Lord? And so, like his mom and dad were brought back into the love of the faith because of their child's devotion, and that, I think, just speaks to. There was a contemplation in his heart. Think just speaks to. There was a contemplation in his heart. There was almost like a mysticism of carlo in the way he was able to enter into the eucharist is my, is my personal source and summit and the source and summit.
Speaker 2:Last thing I'll quickly say you know carlo is buried in assisi. It's not from assisi, didn't ever live in assisi. He's from from Milan, was born in London. It's odd that he would be buried in Assisi, other than it's an incredibly important holy place in our church's life. But Milan is just as important in some ways and like, honestly, I'm shocked that we didn't see some sort of like a battle for the body, as we saw with Fulton Sheen, between, like, the archdiocese of Milan and Assisi and Rome. But he's in Assisi and that was his request and it's been honored.
Speaker 2:And I've often thought like, why, you know, like, would Carlo have been a Franciscan in 20 years? Would he have discerned that vocation? We have no way of knowing. But then it occurred to me and call it, I don't know, just like kind of a, an inspiration, or it was just like in reading some of the things he's written and the books that were written about his life and hearing some of the talks that his mother's given.
Speaker 2:Carlo was incredibly Franciscan in his desire to show people Jesus in the ways that they'd be able to understand so, the Eucharistic miracles, to try to convince people. And what was Francis all about? Well, showing people Jesus. And what did Francis all about Well showing people Jesus, and what did Francis give us the ways was kind of like the first expression of a, of a visual representation of the Lord that Carlo then, thousands of years later, hundreds of years later, picked up with this internet development that he was doing, and so it's so appropriate that he's just down the hill from Francis and then, just, you know, up the hill from Claire and, and I just love that, I don't know if he would have been a Franciscan, but I like to imagine he probably would have been.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and Claire, the patroness of television.
Speaker 1:Exactly yes, so it's like all this you know they both were devoted to the Eucharist and just, yeah, I think I do want to address kind of this, this, this strain of thought that came out especially on social media when his candidation was was announced, where people were kind of like poo pooing Carlo as being too ordinary, not radical enough, not unusual enough in his holiness.
Speaker 1:It really set me off because we've been talking, you know, about his relatability and how important that is and it is important to see that holiness is possible for us. But one thing that really set me off was everyone's like well, you know, like I can use the internet and I can do this. And I was like, yeah, but are you kind? And it really struck me when you brought up at the beginning of the episode, his kindness, because I think we write that off as being, oh, he was kind, like, like soft or normal, like kindness is hard, people kindness is hard. And when you look at Carlo's life, what he did was very normal. And I don't do it Right, I don't befriend the, the, the friendless, I don't try to encourage people to go to daily mass, like I think we write off what he did as being easy, yet when you look at our own lives. We don't do it because it seems too normal, too ordinary, do you like?
Speaker 2:I'm sure it set you off as well, so can you kind of speak to that? So there were there are a couple of uh culprits on twitter who were, you know, kind of like I just don't have a devotion for him. I don't know why all you people are so excited about it, and it was like oh, so you're just a jealous boy like you're just like.
Speaker 2:That's all it comes down to is like you're the same age as carlo and you're just jealous that everybody's talking about his holiness and not yours. Um, well, hey, you're alive and he died and he's in heaven, so get over yourself. Like that was my, that was my non-carlo twitter reaction. Um, yeah, it is so easy to like, want to lampoon him and like, oh yeah, I wear sneakers. And like the internet, what is what's holy about that so much? One, it's hard to be holy online. And two, because in that simplistic look I'm I'm going to tell people about my love of the lord and that's gonna captivate people when I'm gone.
Speaker 2:Like Carlo didn't set out to be kind so that when he died at 15, he would be canonized right. Like it was Carlo set out to be kind because nobody else was. You know, like the kids that would get bullied in class, carlo would stick up for them because nobody else was the kid that went to daily mass, because he saw the importance of it and it didn't matter that nobody else was doing it. Like that was still going to be an important priority for him. And so I think there is. It puts a mirror up to us in our lives when there is somebody who is so profoundly holy and yet looks so profoundly ordinary. Because we then look at our life and think, okay, well, my life is harder than his life, or I've had more dramatic things happen, or I've you, well, my life is harder than his life, or I've had more dramatic things happen, or I've you know, like, my life is so out of the ordinary, I'm not holy. How could he possibly have achieved that with just those ordinary circumstances? And so like, there is this lampooning of it, because I think there's a confrontation of well, he did it in these ordinary circumstances and there's something profound about that.
Speaker 2:And I think people will struggle too, because most of our saint stories have been told despite the great effort of our dear friend Meg Hunter Kilmer. Majority of the saint stories that are told are just these nice trite like, oh, augustine, he drank a lot and he partied a lot and then he had this massive conversion. Or the Therese was this wild child and then she loved Jesus and died of tuberculosis. And it's like, and Carlo, he likes the internet and he made a website and then he died. Well, okay, so yes, take out, he liked the Eucharist and he made stuff on the internet. He got bullied at school and he was kind to his bullies. He was an only child and suffered from some loneliness and some sadness, especially too when his parents were like, ah, this religious thing is just kind of a fad until they converted. He was a young man who had a cough, went to the hospital and was dead in two weeks.
Speaker 2:Like there was suffering in Carlo's life. It was just very brief and quick and he embraced it with this vulnerability of, okay, lord, like, if this is my time, this is my time, so you just have to go a little bit underneath that caricature surface. The art of Carlo doesn't help us with this, because sometimes he's just like, presented as standing there. It's like no, like. Show him with a monstrance in his hand. Show him with a computer with a monstrance on it, like. Show us that Eucharistic devotion that is, showing us that deep, deep love of the Lord that made even his very ordinary teenage life something very radical at that time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think there's that accountability that we have to, like you said, like it causes us to examine our own lives, because sometimes the saint stories are like, oh well, they levitated or they had this stigmata and it's like oh, okay, then I'll go sit over here and I'm not called to that, right?
Speaker 1:And he reminds us that we're called to it and we're called to the hard stuff, and the hard stuff looks simple at times, but I love his quote about being born original but many people die as photocopies, and just that. You know. We're not called now to be Carlo. God has given us a mission in our own life. What gifts has he given us and what people has he put in our lives for us to be St Katie and St Joan? Right? It's so tempting just to imitate everyone else. And so now, how do we take what he has shown us, take him as our model and then go be a saint in our own life?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's such a great point that carlo, he saw the world for what I think it was becoming in a lot of ways, that the interest to say that before we had the facebook and the twitter and the instagram, yeah, he, he kind of almost had like this premonition of we're entering into this comparison culture where what I get to do, what you get to do, oh well, she got to do this or he got to go do that, I'm not doing that.
Speaker 2:And this competitiveness that in a lot of ways, especially in, like, influencer world and Catholic media world, like absolutely exists. And there was this don't try to be other people, like don't even try to go be just Jesus in the way that Jesus was Jesus, but like be the little Christ that you're called to be in the world because you've received Jesus and he's transformed you. And to say that in the early two thousands before we, yeah, it's, it is profound, um, and I think in so many ways, and I keep saying 2005,. Did he die in 2005? I feel like I'm saying that incorrectly, um ways and I keep saying 2005.
Speaker 1:Did he die in 2005? I, I feel like I'm saying that incorrectly. Um, I don't want to. It's been a long couple days. He, he. I thought it was really beautiful that he was offering his sufferings for pope benedict.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so it would have been before, uh, before he died in 2006, 05 jp. So he saw, so I was okay. So, like we're on when we're recording this, we're like all talking about the pope, so I've been getting like dates in my head all mixed up. Yes, there is a story that talks about. So carlo was obviously in italy and a deeply devoted kid and he wasn't sick at the time that jp2 fell ill at the end of his life, and so that I'm trying to do some research, like, did carlo's mom take him down for jp2's funeral? Because it wouldn't have been out of the realm of possibility?
Speaker 2:right, they were in italy you know, millions upon millions he could have been standing right next to me, so he could have been, he could have been in, but but that's the thing. Like he would have.
Speaker 2:I have no doubt that, like he I mean, obviously he went to rome on multiple occasions, but it's completely within the realm of possibility that he went down for the funeral or at the very least, to like pass by the body of jp2 yes and so to think like I just I love that potential of I'm gonna, I need to ask his mom, I need to like find out a way to get to antonia and say like, okay, tell me, give me a timeline of you guys's 2005 and 2006. And then when he did get so suddenly sick and it was rapid, and I, I sometimes I try to contemplate like the hardship that that must have been on his parents and their need for faith in those moments, and like, praise the lord carlo had brought them back to the church in his young life so that when their son fell ill and is gone within two weeks, they had something to cling to and it wasn't just the memory of their child, but it was this deeper faith of like, oh, my goodness, he is with the Lord that he loved. There's this one story of when he's in the hospital and his parents, of course, are with him They'd fallen asleep in the chairs and the nurse comes in to do vitals and look at everything and is going to wake up his mom and dad to give them the update on stuff. And he went no, no, let them sleep because, like he knew his parents were gonna have to plan a funeral and he just didn't want them to be exhausted and I love like that tenderness in his heart.
Speaker 2:Um, for a 15 year old boy. Have you met 15 year old boys? They're kind of punks at times, or like they, they struggle with their sense of self and identity. Or, like in the bro andrew tate world that exists these days, like they're constantly being told this is how to be a guy, this is how to be a man, and like Carla was a 15 year old kid who was nice and kind and loving. That is radical and holy in the world today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'd highly recommend people read the book that his mom put together and it's. It is very tender. It reads as if it is a mother talking about her son, like she kind of goes back and and gets distracted and goes on tangents and it's just, it's such a beautiful testimony to a mother who is still, I think, kind of overwhelmed by the fact that she had this, this son.
Speaker 1:Would you um kind of wrap us up by talking about the movie or other ways people can find out about Carlo? But can you tell people who might be interested about um the movie or other ways people can find out about Carlo?
Speaker 2:but can you tell people who might be interested about the movie that's coming out? Yeah, so the Roadmap to Reality. I was so pumped when they asked me to be a part of it and then they like came and filmed our family for a day and I was like whoa, like what I thought you were just going to like interview me for a couple hours. The funny part about it and I imagine Carlo was laughing in heaven. So my grandfather passed away very suddenly at the end of March of 2024. Like, he was fine on Sunday and he was gone by Wednesday, and then that following Monday and it was all during Holy Week, so we had to have the funeral the Monday after Easter and then the following Monday after that we started the renovations on our kitchen. So it was just like absolute chaos in my life at that particular moment. It was a very holy death for my grandfather. I was very, very privileged that I was able to be there for all of it, but it was sad, it was rough. And then we had this kitchen renovation scheduled and we, like you know, had to get it done. And in the middle of all that I get a phone call from Tim Moriarty who's like hey, we're making this Carlo documentary. I, carlo documentary. I know you love Carlo. Can we come film about Carlo and I? Just I went to the adoration chapel and went okay, if you really want me to do this, you just need to send me like this absolute definitive sign. And I kid you, not Joan, I'm sitting in this adoration chapel. It's the same chapel I've gone to my whole life. It was the place I went and prayed all during COVID, like it was the one safe haven that I had through all of the lockdowns. And I swear to you the monstrance it's up on, like this little dais and this hand to God. There was like a moth flying around and somehow, like it must've just been so precariously perched on this little stand that, like the monstrance moved. I was not the only one in the room that saw it, multiple people were in the room and we're all like is about to fall, and so it's like you got to give me a sign. Monstrance moves because of a moth. Fine, so I text him back. I'm available on this day. This is the only day I'm available. They come and spend the day, so it was really great to get to talk about him.
Speaker 2:The documentary is not just here's carlo's life. It's talking to people in the world of media, especially about how he approached the use of the internet and what we can learn from that in this very extra connected world 20 years after his death, as well as talking about the impact he's had on people's families and their lives, and so I think it's going to be a really cool presentation that we haven't yet seen of carlo's life and, very providentially, a lot of the people who were interviewed for it had similar stories of like yeah, carlo kind of told me without question I had to do this, despite the fact that it was incredibly inconvenient. So, behind the scenes I have no idea if this footage is in the film they were like well, we want to film your family like living their life, and so my kids at school that day. So I, like they would do my interview in the morning. They record a lot of stuff while I'm doing my show in my home studio.
Speaker 2:The kids get home at 3.30 with Tommy and they're like well, we want to film you cooking a meal. I was like guys, I have no kitchen. There's a hole in my house, so Tommy had to grill up some pork steaks really quickly. We eat them outside and they're like, we want to film you guys praying at a cemetery. So we drove, drove to the cemetery to go pray at my grandfather's grave and like, in the midst of all of it, claire's acting bananas and rose is like why are there cameras everywhere? It was an insane afternoon and I really hope it turned out well. And I've seen the trailer, of course, for the film and I've heard some of the stuff that they've included in it. I think it's going to be phenomenal. And, uh, it comes out the weekend of his canonization, so I don't even get to go to the premiere because I'm going to be at the canonization. I think I'm winning in that regard, like I can see the movie anytime. He's only becoming a saint on this one day and I'm not going to miss that.
Speaker 1:I love it. Do you know how people can see the film?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so fathomeventscom is where you can go find all the information of what theaters it's going to be at. You can buy tickets there, so it'll come out. I believe it premieres April the 25th. It'll be in theaters through the 27th and then available on streaming platforms after that. But go see it in theaters because it's just, it's epic. We have a movie about our boy, right Carlo's going to be in theaters. We got it. We got to go check that out.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Well, thanks, katie. Thanks for coming on and talking about your boy, carlo, and it was great and we will be praying for you on pilgrimage as you go to experience the canonization so thanks so much, John yeah. Do you want to experience this historic event in the life of the church for yourself? Whether you want to take a group or you're just an individual looking for a trip, Verso Ministries can make that dream a reality. Visit versoministriescom slash Jubilee for all our Jubilee dates and for more information.
