(5 Apr 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Assisi, Italy – 2 April 2025
1. Woman praying in front of Carlo Acutis’ portrait and heart relic
2. Pan right from Acutis’ portrait to his heart relic
3. Tilt down of relic with an inscription at top reading (Italian) “Eucharist. My highway to the sky” to inscription at base reading (Latin), “The heart of Blessed Carlo Acutis”
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Rome – 3 April 2025
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Domenico Sorrentino, Bishop of Assisi:
++SOUNDBITE PARTIALLY COVERED++
“The relics are little, little fragments of the body, to say that, that body is blessed and it explains to us the closeness of God to us. Parents of Carlo gave the body of Carlo to the diocese (of Assisi). So the body of Carlo, so to say, is under my personal responsibility. And when I saw this market, I went quickly to the police and said this is something to stop.”
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Assisi, Italy – 2 April 2025
5. People passing in front and placing their hands on the tomb of Acutis to pray
6. Close of Acutis’ embalmed hands holding a rosary
7. Various of people passing in front and placing their hands on the tomb of Acutis to pray
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Larry Kulick, Bishop of the Diocese of Greensburg, Pennsylvania:
++SOUNDBITE PARTIALLY COVERED++
"This stop today in Assisi has allowed us the opportunity to see the body and the relics of Saint Carlo Acutis. And those are very reverent and very solemn for us as Catholics. And they are not only inspirational for us, but they are really for us as Catholics, opportunities to help us to pray. And so it’s unfortunate that such a thing would happen, because that’s really a misuse of the relics and actually a disrespect to him and to his memory.”
9. Mid of women looking at relic
10. Close of woman lighting candle
11. Various of women standing in front of portrait and heart relic of Acutis and taking photos
12. Student Amelia Simone posing for photo next to life-size cardboard cut-out of Acutis outside tomb
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Amelia Simone, 18-year-old from Chicago studying in Rome:
++SOUNDBITE PARTIALLY COVERED++
“I would never buy one (relic). I think the intercession aspect is very cool, but I don’t think I’d ever want to own a first-class relic. It just would feel a bit weird to me. I don’t know, I don’t think I’d like that.”
14. Close of magnets showing Acutis
15. Wide of souvenir shop
STORYLINE:
With the upcoming canonization of its first millennial saint, the Catholic Church has turned to police in Italy to investigate the online sale of some purported relics of Carlo Acutis, who already has been drawing hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to his shrine.
Since the early days of the faith, many Catholics have prayed for intercession to saints’ relics — usually small parts of their body or clothing that are authenticated by ecclesiastical authorities and preserved in churches. But their sale is strictly forbidden.
An anonymous seller had put up for online auction some supposedly authenticated locks of Acutis’ hair that were fetching upward of 2,000 euros ($2,200 US), according to the Diocese of Assisi, before being taken down.
Last month, Bishop Domenico Sorrentino asked authorities to confiscate the items and added that if fraudulent, the sale would constitute a “great offense to religious belief.”
Acutis died of leukemia in 2006, when he was only 15 but had already developed a precocious faith life cantered on devotion to the Eucharist — which for Catholics holds the real presence of Christ.
AP video shot by Silvia Stellacci
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