(27 Mar 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Assisi, Italy – 1 March 2025
1. SOUNDBITE (English) Giovanna Dell’Orto, The Associated Press: ++PARTIALLY OVERLAID BY SHOTS 2 TO 6++
"I am in Assisi, a hilltop Italian town where 800 years ago, Saint Francis renounced his family’s riches in the square right behind me and became one of the most venerated saints in the history of Catholicism. Today, pilgrims continue to come to the church that you see behind me, the Santuario della Spogliazione, to pray in front of the body of the first millennial saint, Blessed Carlo Actis, an Italian teenager who died in 2006 when he was 15 and will be canonized on April 27th. Parents come here with their children, hoping that Acutis can provide the model of how to live faith in a normal life. And Assisi’s bishop says that Acutisi’s miracles are already evident in the explosion of faith that has turned many youth towards the Catholic Church."
2. Wide of people by church
3. Nuns at the shrine of Carlo Acutis
4. Close of images of Acutis and Assisi
5. Pilgrims at church
6. People picking up leaflets
STORYLINE:
Pilgrims have been pouring into a medieval hilltop town to venerate not only two of the Catholic Church’s most celebrated saints, Francis and Clare, but its newest – Carlo Acutis, the first millennial saint, who will be canonized in a month on April 27.
Acutis, who was born to Italian parents in London, died of leukaemia in Italy in 2006 at the age of 15.
Pope Francis beatified him in 2020 in Assisi, where his tomb draws a steady stream of pilgrims, and he will be the youngest contemporary figure to be canonized
Touted as the “patron saint of the internet,” Acutis used his natural tech talent to create a website to catalogue miracles and took care of websites for some local Catholic organizations.
Acutis was buried in Assisi at his own requests, having become an admirer of St. Francis of Assisi for his dedication to the poor. The Umbrian town was one of his favorite travel destinations.
In Assisi groups of pilgrims line up every day to enter the Santuario della Spogliazione – a sombre church marking the spot where more than 800 years ago St. Francis renounced his family’s wealth.
There, they prayed by the monument where Acutis’ body is on view, wearing jeans, a sweatshirt and sneakers.
Early in March, hundreds filed past, a group of nuns and many families with teens, some clutching rosaries, others took selfies or touched the protective glass in front of the seemingly sleeping young man.
According to Assisi’s Bishop Rev. Domenico Sorrentino, over the last year more than a million pilgrims paid homage to Acutis.
The teen’s happy image, usually in a red polo shirt and carrying a backpack, is as popular in souvenir shops across town as Francis in his simple brown habit.
AP video by Chris Warde-Jones
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