A four-month mission taking the major pilgrim relic of St Carlo Acutis across Australia ended with families and young Catholics filling St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney on Sunday for a farewell Mass. Source: The Catholic Weekly.
Children and teenagers stayed back to learn about the first saint with an email address and to touch prayer cards to his relic.
Many wrote petitions for his intercession, to be placed at his tomb in Assisi, and some shyly brought their parents with them to speak with the relic’s custodian, Msgr Anthony Figueiredo, who said the pilgrimage would resonate beyond the crowds it had attracted.
“The numbers are not so important as what God has done during this time,” he said, echoing a talk he had given after the Mass.
“There have been miracles, but the most important has been the moral miracle, the change of life and the bringing of hope.
“Carlo brings hope that goodness is possible in this age, that an ordinary kid’s life can become extraordinary.
“What is normal in this world can become holy and what is holy can become normal.”
The farewell brought the mission back to where it began on June 25, when Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP celebrated a welcome Mass.
In a video message from Assisi, where St Carlo’s body rests, Archbishop Fisher said he was excited to welcome the saint’s major relic back to the cathedral and asked Carlo to pray for this country’s people.
“He’s really seen more of Australia than most Australians have,” Archbishop Fisher joked.
The archbishop said the mission had also helped promote the International Eucharistic Congress, which Sydney will host in 2028, and expressed hope that the saint’s body might be brought to Australia for the event.
Led by Friends of St Carlo Acutis Australia president Kate Hobbs, the mission team travelled about 25,000 kilometres in two vans, visiting churches, schools and communities in every state and territory.
Mons Figueiredo said children had sometimes become the unexpected evangelisers.
“What we found in many places in the schools we visited [was] that the children wanted to bring their parents. And many teenagers have come. This is a miracle in itself!”
St Carlo died of acute promyelocytic leukemia in 2006. Born in 1991, he would now be 35 – hence his unofficial status as the church’s first “millennial saint”. Pope Leo XIV canonised him on September 7, 2025.
FULL STORY
Sydney farewells St Carlo Acutis after national mission (By Marilyn Rodrigues, The Catholic Weekly)
