A documentary about Carlo Acutis, the teenage saint known as “God’s Influencer”, has become a major television success in Italy.
Nearly 4.3 million viewers watched My Name Is Carlo, which explores Acutis’s life, when it aired on Italy’s Canale 5 on Sunday.
The programme secured almost 30 per cent of the overall audience. Italian media reported that its share peaked at 40 per cent, meaning four in every 10 television viewers in the country were watching.
It chronicles the life of Acutis, who died from leukaemia in 2006 at the age of 15 and was canonised by Pope Leo in September 2025.
Acutis, portrayed in the documentary by Italian actor Samuele Carrino, was born in London on May 3, 1991, to a wealthy family that later returned to Milan, Italy.
He became known as “God’s Influencer” because of his pioneering use of technology. His main digital legacy was a multilingual website cataloguing Eucharistic miracles recognised by the Catholic Church.
The Catholic Church declared the teenager a saint after confirming two miracles attributed to his intercession.
The first was recognised in 2020, when the Church concluded that Acutis had been responsible for the healing of a child suffering from a pancreatic disease.
The tomb of Carlo Acutis at Assisi’s Sanctuary of the Renunciation, a part of the Church of St. Mary Major
A Brazilian mother had prayed to Saint Acutis for her son’s recovery before kissing a relic of his clothing. Immediately after Mass, the boy told his mother that he felt better.
Subsequent medical tests showed that his pancreas had returned to normal.
The second miracle was recognised in 2024. It involved a Costa Rican woman who suffered a brain haemorrhage after falling from her bicycle in Italy. Her mother prayed at Acutis’s tomb, after which the woman was said to have made a miraculous recovery.
That same day, despite doctors saying she had little chance of surviving her injuries, the woman began breathing without assistance.
By the next day, she could walk unaided. Doctors who examined the case said there was no longer any evidence of the haemorrhage.
More than one million people are believed to have travelled to the hilltop town of Assisi, where the teenager’s body is preserved in wax.
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Dressed in a tracksuit and trainers, Acutis’s body was exhumed in 2019 and placed in a glass tomb, where it has remained on display.
Born to an Italian mother and a banker father who was half English and half Italian, Acutis developed a deep religious faith despite his parents not being particularly devout.
He was raised in Milan, where he attended Mass every day. He was also known for helping bullied children and people experiencing homelessness, bringing the latter food and sleeping bags.
In Milan, he managed his parish website and later worked on the website of a Vatican-based academy, using the platforms to share the Catholic faith.
At 11, he became fascinated by accounts of wine turning into blood in Croatian castles and stories from Colombia in which priests stopped approaching tsunamis by raising reliquaries.
In the documentary, Acutis is played by Italian actor Samuele Carrino
He would then look up these tales and post them on his website, which he had designed to document miracles and stories about saints.
Antonia Salzano, his mother, said her son had a ‘special relationship’ with God from an early age, even though her family was not religious.
Aged seven, Acutis wrote: ‘My life plan is to be always close to Jesus.’
It was a commitment he would carry with him throughout his life before it was cut short by cancer of the blood in 2006.
Carlo’s diagnosis with leukaemia in October 2006 came as a horrifying shock.
The disease can take several forms but affects the blood cells in bone marrow.
Symptoms include tiredness, bruising and bleeding, repeated infections and high temperatures, per Blood Cancer UK.
The disease overwhelmingly affects young people. While it is not currently curable, it is possible to treat.
In spite of his diagnosis, Carlo reassured his parents: ‘I’m happy to die because I’ve lived my life without wasting even a minute of it doing things that wouldn’t have pleased God.’
