Denver Catholic

39 DENVER CATHOLIC | DECEMBER 2020 H E HAD A VI B R ANT CHARITY. He stuck up for classmates being bullied, invited to his home kids who were suffering because of their parents' divorce or domestic problems, tutored classmates who were struggling with homework or computer problems, patiently rescued friends experimenting with drugs or addicted to pornography, spent time with the elderly helping them with tasks, "hunted" for litter in parks or on the beach to beautify the world, brought warm drinks and food to the homeless and used his allowance to buy them sleeping bags or warm clothes. "Life is a gift," he said, "because as long as we are on earth, we can increase our level of love." H I S G R EATEST CHARITY WAS TO TRY TO S HAR E TH E FAITH . From the time he was 11, he taught catechism and sought to inspire younger kids to choose to strive for sanctity. To make the faith practical, he made a "Holiness Kit" for them that involved nine steps that he himself practiced: to love God with all your heart; each day to try to go to Mass and receive Communion, pray the Rosary, read a passage of sacred Scripture, and make a visit to Jesus in the tabernacle each day; to go to confession once a week; to help others as often as you can; and to rely on your guardian angel as your best friend. H E ATTR ACTE D PEO PLE TO TH E FAITH M O R E BY H I S EX AM PLE AN D FRI E N DS H I P THAN BY WO R DS . His mom said, "To live close to someone like Carlo means not to remain neutral in your faith." His zeal led him use his computer skills to try to design websites not only on the Eucharist and on Marian apparitions but also a 170-part series on the Last Things and a 131-part series on Angels and Demons in the lives of saints. Despite all of this, there's a danger in the devotion to him now growing very fast. It's that, like Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, he might suffer from well-meaning but superficial caricature. Some reduce Frassati from a man of the beatitudes and heroic charity to a "holy hunk" who hiked and smoked a pipe. Similarly, some are basi- cally promoting Blessed Carlo as a PlayStation-com- peting, comic-book-loving, jeans-and-sneaker-wearing computer whiz. In trying to make holiness "cool," they're instead making it mundane by focusing on acci- dents rather than substance. Like his beloved St. Francis, however, Blessed Carlo was an "influencer for God" not by his worldliness but by his ordinary otherworldly radicalness. His most famous quip was, "All people are born as originals, but many die as photocopies," and some are unfortunately trying to make him two-dimensional, evidently believ- ing that the depth of his originality in God's image would repel rather than attract the young even more. The world and the Church, however, are in need the real thing.

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