"Acutis a saint? Absurd". Controversy erupts over canonization. Bishop counter-attacks.

Theologian and liturgist Andrea Grillo takes issue with the Eucharistic culture of the millennial blessed. But he sparks indignation among the faithful

See articles on the Eucharistic heresy of Andrea Grillo

Francis beatified him on October 10, 2020 and Leo XIV will canonize him on September 7, but not everyone agrees with raising Carlo Acutis to the honors of the altars. The young man, born in 1991 and died at the age of fifteen in 2006 from a serious fulminant leukemia, stood out for his Marian devotion and love for the Eucharist. It was the latter that pushed him to create a photographic exhibition on the Internet dedicated to Eucharistic miracles around the world, leveraging his computer skills. But this attachment of Acutis was at the origin of the doubts about his canonization expressed by the well-known and controversial theologian Andrea Grillo.

The accusations

According to Grillo, who is a full professor at the Pontifical Athenaeum of Sant'Anselmo and was a great supporter of the discontinuity of Francis' pontificate, that of Acutis was "a Eucharistic theology so old, so heavy, obsessive, concentrated on the inessential and so neglected instead on the decisive things". The professor took it out on those who would have "communicated in such a distorted way" to the young man the ecclesial value of the Eucharist, causing him an "understanding so deficient, so defective, so unilateral". In particular, Grillo criticized "Eucharistic miracles in the world" or the exhibition conceived by the boy who died in 2006. "Should we perhaps get to the point of saying - wrote the author on his blog - we recognize him as a saint 'despite his distorted fixation for Eucharistic miracles'? The issue is actually more serious, because it does not concern a young adolescent, but the false teachers who were around him during his life and who after his death want to project their bad theology onto him, as an example". Words that call into question the canonization desired by Francis who about a year ago recognized the second miracle attributed to the intercession of the young man. He should have canonized him himself last April 27 on the occasion of the Jubilee of Adolescents, but then illness postponed everything.

The outrage

Grillo accused the phantom "false teachers" of Acutis of "Eucharistic rudeness" and vehemently attacked the prospect that the boy could be presented by the Church as a model. In the days following the article, the professor continued to argue against the canonization through several posts on Facebook. The stance taken by Grillo, a professor at a pontifical university, provoked indignation on the web among the faithful all over the world. That very virtual world within which, at the turn of the millennium, the future saint moved to promote his evangelizing mission has come out in defense of his memory. The voice of the Bishop of Orihuela-Alicante, Monsignor José Ignacio Munilla, also rose against Grillo's accusations, calling the article "incredible" and criticizing the theological approach that "fails to accept that God intervenes supernaturally in history".

Devotion

Acutis defined the Eucharist as “my highway to Heaven” and had a great devotion to the Madonna. Today he is considered the blessed millennial and very soon he will be the saint millennial. His short but intense life entirely dedicated to God has long made him a point of reference for many young believers and has caused a veneration for his figure to flourish in many parishes and communities around the world. Since 2019 his body has been kept in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, inside the Sanctuary of the Spogliazione of Assisi and is the destination of numerous pilgrimages.

In 2020, the body was exposed for veneration in the Sanctuary and the fact that it had remained intact 14 years after death, although conservative treatments had been performed, had aroused great interest. Leo XIV in his first ordinary public Consistory established that Acutis will be a saint on September 7 together with Pier Giorgio Frassati.

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