“The only thing we have to ask God for, in prayer, is the desire to be holy.”
When I first heard these words of Blessed Carlo Acutis, I was struck by how simple and approachable holiness suddenly felt. As this Italian teenager exemplified, being faithful and striving for sainthood do not depend on perfection or grand achievements — they are about opening our hearts to God’s grace.
I first encountered Carlo Acutis in 2021 during my freshman year of college at a regional SEEK conference. There was something intriguing and touching about a boy so close to my own age who had lived a relatively ordinary life yet was now on the path to sainthood.
Over the following years, I found myself drawn further into the story of “God’s influencer,” reading books about his life and exploring his website dedicated to the world’s Eucharistic miracles.
All these threads came together when I viewed “Carlo Acutis: Roadmap to Reality,” a documentary released in theaters on the weekend of Carlo’s scheduled canonization, an event now indefinitely postponed after the death of Pope Francis.
“Roadmap to Reality,” which is now available to stream online, does more than recount Carlo’s life; it invites viewers to experience his journey and encourages us to embrace simple, authentic holiness in today’s digital age.
Encountering the first millennial saint
The film follows a group of high school students from North Dakota as they embark on a two-week pilgrimage to Italy to visit the tomb of Blessed Carlo Acutis. During their journey, they are challenged to disconnect from technology by leaving their phones behind — a challenge that made many of them feel anxious or even frustrated, given how much of their daily lives revolved around their screens.
However, as the students — many of whom admitted they hadn’t given much thought to their faith beyond school or family expectations — continue their pilgrimage through Rome and Siena, something begins to shift. By the time they arrive in Assisi and kneel at the tomb of Blessed Carlo, the experience becomes more than just a trip. Freed from digital distractions and immersed in the witness of a modern saint, they begin to realize that they too can pray for the desire to be holy and strive for sainthood, just as Carlo did.
“To see someone my age becoming a saint,” a student says in the film after seeing the tomb, “I started crying when I saw him.”
This willingness to step away from their screens opens up one of the documentary’s most compelling themes: how technology shapes our lives, our relationships and even our understanding of what it means to be human.
Well-connected or ‘passive spectators’?
Catholic leaders and technology experts in “Roadmap to Reality” speak candidly about the digital world’s influence on our sense of identity. One particularly striking moment reflects on a controversial Apple ad in which musical instruments, toys, books and other symbols of human creativity are compressed into a single, flattened iPad — an image that provokes questions rather than admiration.
Technology companies “will digitize your soul if they thought they could make money on it,” comments writer Rod Dreher.
Experts in the film explain that social media and advertising platforms are deliberately designed to capture and hold our attention, using constant visual stimulation to keep us scrolling, watching and consuming. Over time, this digital overload can erode our sense of place, familiarity and even personal identity — ultimately leaving us, as Msgr. James Shea observes, “passive spectators” in the very reality where we are called to encounter the truth and beauty of God’s creation.
In contrast, Carlo made intentional choices to stay grounded. Though he enjoyed using his computer and playing video games, he limited himself to just one hour of PlayStation per week and used technology primarily as a tool for learning and evangelization. Long before smartphones, social media and artificial intelligence became the norm, Carlo sensed how easy it was to let screens distract from what truly mattered. For him, no form of media or entertainment ever took the place of his love for Christ in the Eucharist.
Seeking the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist
That quiet, consistent and deeply personal love is at the heart of the stories shared by those who knew Carlo best. Throughout “Roadmap to Reality,” his family and friends offer intimate glimpses into the life of a boy whose holiness was not marked by grand gestures, but by small, sincere acts of faith.
As a small child, Carlo felt drawn to enter churches and sit in front of the tabernacle and images of the Blessed Virgin Mary. After receiving his first holy Communion at the age of 7, Carlo attended Mass and Eucharistic adoration every day. His example inspired his non-practicing parents to return to the sacraments and rediscover the beauty of their faith.
“I always say,” Antonia Acutis, Carlo’s mother, recounts in the film, “that Carlo was a little savior for me.”
At just 11 years old, while serving as an assistant catechist in his parish, Carlo noticed that his peers showed little excitement or understanding about the Eucharist. Moved by this, he began researching the Eucharistic miracle of Lanciano and was struck by how captivated his classmates became when he shared it.
Convinced that Eucharistic miracles were the key to awakening faith in young hearts, Carlo dedicated himself to gathering and presenting these stories, believing that they could draw others toward the greatest gift God left us: the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
He then taught himself video editing and college-level computer programming to craft a website dedicated to documenting the world’s Eucharistic miracles, as well as a site on Marian apparitions.
“He used the internet and understood that it was an instrument, a fantastic power if used well for evangelization,” Antonia further shares. “He did things that are really impacting the world now.”
A bridge to reality
Carlo Acutis died Oct. 12, 2006, within a week of being diagnosed with acute promyelocytic leukemia. He was 15 years old. In his final days, Carlo never complained about his suffering but offered it up for the Church and Pope Benedict XVI, happily awaiting his eternal reward.
“Carlo loved heaven. He had already tasted heaven in the Eucharist,” Bishop Andrew Cozzens shares in the documentary. “And because he had tasted heaven, when he could see that it was coming, he could accept it.”
Beatified in 2020, Carlo Acutis has quickly become a spiritual companion for a generation searching for meaning in a world saturated with noise. For me, that search became personal at that regional SEEK conference during my freshman year. I was just beginning to fall in love with and explore my faith more intentionally — no longer just something inherited from my family, but something I wanted to claim for myself.
As I watched the documentary, I felt an unexpected kinship with the student pilgrims encountering Carlo in his tomb. In a pilgrimage I made to Assisi last year, I remember standing in that same chapel, praying and crying before Carlo’s body. Seeing the realness of his life — his sneakers, his hoodie, his youth — made sanctity feel startlingly close. Not abstract or distant, but something that someone like me could actually strive for.
What struck me then, and even more deeply now after watching “Roadmap to Reality,” is how Carlo embraced technology not as a distraction, but as a means of evangelization. Years before the rise of Instagram or TikTok, he was quietly building his website not to draw attention to himself, but to lead others to Christ. His goal wasn’t to keep people online, but to point them back to the Church, back to the Eucharist, back to engaging deeply with reality itself. For Carlo, technology was never the destination; it was a bridge to something far more real and lasting.
That quiet creativity and devotion challenged my own assumptions about holiness. Watching the documentary brought all of that back into focus. It was not just a story about a boy who loved God — it was a reminder that even in a digital world, sanctity is still possible.
Carlo’s life reminds us that sainthood isn’t distant or reserved for the extraordinary. It’s found in daily faithfulness, in quiet love for the Eucharist and in using whatever tools we have — even technology — to lead others to the Father. In a world that often feels distracted and restless, his life offers a clear, grounded path toward God.
“Carlo Acutis: Roadmap to Reality” is now available to watch on CREDO, a new global streaming platform for faith-driven content. Founded by Tim Moriarty, CEO and founder of Castletown Media, CREDO will also stream “Leo XIV: A Pontiff’s Path” later this year.
