The tomb of Carlo Acutis, a computer-programming teen, was opened on Thursday morning in Assisi, Italy after the Holy Mass officiated by the Bishop of the Diocese.
The body, dressed in jeans, sneakers and hoody, was put on public display for veneration after it was found intact and incorruptible 10 years after burial.
The late teen who was born on May 3, 1991, died on October 12, 2006 at the age of 15 from leukemia.
Carlo Acutis was an Italian Roman Catholic teenager. He was best known for documenting Eucharistic miracles around the world and cataloging them all onto a website that he created in the months before his death.
Pope Francis declared him to be Venerable on 5 July 2018. He also approved a miracle attributed to him which enables Acutis to be beatified.
Acutis will be beatified at the Papal Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi on Saturday, October 10 at 4 P.M. Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, will preside.
A spokeswoman for Acutis’ beatification told CNA that the entire body was present, but “not incorrupt.”
“Today we … see him again in his mortal body. A body that has passed, in the years of burial in Assisi, through the normal process of decay, which is the legacy of the human condition after sin has removed it from God, the source of life. But this mortal body is destined for resurrection,” Archbishop Domenico Sorrentino of Assisi said at a Mass at the opening of the tomb Oct. 1.
The teen’s body will be available for veneration in a glass tomb until Oct. 17, during a celebration of Acutis’ life in Assisi.
The heart of Acutis, which can now be considered a relic, will be displayed in a reliquary in the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi. His mother said that his family had wanted to donate his organs when he died, but were unable to do so because of the leukemia.
“Carlo is a boy of our time. A boy of the internet age, and a model of holiness of the digital age, as Pope Francis presented him in his letter to young people around the world. The computer … has become a way of going through the streets of the world, like the first disciples of Jesus, to bring to hearts and homes the announcement of true peace, that which quenches the thirst for the infinite that inhabits the human heart,” Sorrentino said.
The rector for the Sanctuary of Spoliation in Assisi, where Acutis’ tomb is located, told EWTN that reconstruction work on Acutis’ face was necessary before the public viewing of the tomb.
Acutis had brain hemorrhaging at the time of his death, and he offered his suffering for the pope and the Church.
“His body was discovered to be fully integral, not intact, but integral, having all its organs. Work was done on his face,” Fr. Carlos Acácio Gonçalves Ferreira said.
“In some way, his earthly face will be seen again. But that face — let us not forget — by now does not point to itself, but to God,” Archbishop Sorrentino said.
Acutis’ tomb is open for public veneration Oct. 1-17 in Assisi to allow as many people as possible to make a prayerful visit in the weeks before and after his beatification Oct. 10.
