Apostolate leaders hope relics in diocese will help draw youth to Christ

Courtesy photo/Fr. Gustavo Vidal

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The Blessed Carlo Acutis Apostolate, which is focused on the evangelization of the youth of the Diocese of Salt Lake City, acquired this relic of St. Maria Goretti recently.

SALT LAKE CITY — Last year the Diocese of Salt Lake City’s Blessed Carlo Acutis Apostolate acquired a first-class relic of the young man for whom it is named: three strands of his hair. In recent months the apostolate, which helps youth ages 13-18 experience the true presence of Christ, has received a second relic, skin from St. Maria Goretti. This month Father Gustavo Vidal, the apostolate’s director, traveled to Mexico to obtain a third relic, a sliver of bone from St. Jose Luis Sanchez Del Rio. All three relics are from young people.

Blessed Carlo Acutis, who lived in Italy, died of leukemia in 2006 at age 15. He had a special love for the Eucharist and designed a website that documented Eucharistic miracles throughout the world. He was beautified in 2010 and is expected to be canonized by Pope Francis in October.

St. Maria Goretti was born on Oct. 16, 1890, in Corinaldo, in Italy’s Ancona Province. Her family later moved to Ferrier di Conca, near Anzio. At the age of 11 she resisted a man’s attempt to rape her. He stabbed her, and she forgave him while on her death bed. On June 24, 1950, Maria was declared a saint. Her attacker served 25 years in prison for murdering Maria; when he was released he went to the young woman’s mother to beg her for forgiveness.

“Her mom said, ‘If my daughter can forgive you, I can forgive you,’” said Michael Edwards, director of the diocesan Office of Youth and Young Adult Ministry, who helps administer the Blessed Carlo Acutis Apostolate.

Saint Jose Luis Sanchez Del Rio was born in Mexico, in the town of Sahuayo, Michoacan, on March 28, 1913, to a faithful Catholic family. After President Plutarco Calles began to persecute members of the Catholic Church, the 13-year-old Jose became a flag-bearer in the Cristeros, a movement that had been initiated for defending the rights of Catholics.

Following a battle where Jose gave his horse to the Cristeros general after the leader’s horse was shot, the young man was captured. When he refused to deny his faith, he was imprisoned in his own parish church in Sahuayo.  When a government official decided to use the church to house his rooster collection, Jose killed the birds rather than have them desecrate the house of the Lord. The government official ordered Jose to be executed for this act. After they tortured him by cutting off the skin on the bottom of his feet and forcing him to walk through the town, Jose was executed by firing squad. He was canonized On Oct. 16, 2016.

“What we’re trying to do with these younger saints is show our youth in the State of Utah and the Diocese of Salt Lake City that there’s many young saints out there and that they can be saints too, and they can live a life that is remarkable and something that we should all aspire to,” Edwards said.

The  three relics of Blessed Carlo Acutis, St. Maria Goretti and St. Jose Luis Sanchez Del Rio are housed at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church. Father Gustavo Vidal, the Apostolate director and St. Rose of Lima pastor, hopes to have a display constructed there to show them off.

“They are all young people, teenagers, and one of the things that we want to do is to present them, to introduce them, to talk to the kids [about them] as models of holiness, that besides the many things that the world offers them – drugs, sex, phones, whatever else is out there  – there is also another option in life for them, and that is holiness of life,” Fr. Vidal said. “We want to tell the kids, you know, that they can give their lives to the Lord as those teenagers did.”

 Apostolate organizers hope to house all three of the relics at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church and to make it a pilgrimage site “for teenagers to come and experience Christ and young saints and how important it is,” Edwards said. “[This would be] not only for our youth in the state of Utah, but also for youth, whoever wants to come. We can arrange for hotels for youth groups to come in and lecture on all three of them [the saints].”

Response from the youth of the diocese to the relics has already been tremendous, Edwards said. At a youth rally at St. Francis of Assisi Parish in April hundreds of teens stood in long lines to be able to see the Carlo Acutis relic.

“I cannot tell you how long that line was for the kids to come up and touch their rosaries or their crosses to the relic to make them a third-class relic; it was really kind of a frenzy,” Edwards said. “The kids were excited about it; they wanted to know how it happened and what it meant and how they could do it. There were so many kids that wanted to participate in that and have a close connection with Carlo.”

The Blessed Carlo Acutis Apostolate brought the relics to the Sept. 21 Utah Catholic Conference for the youth portion of the event and made them available for veneration. They have several other events planned over the next few months to which they will bring the relics.