Carlo Acutis played a lot of Halo in his time on this earth, before earning a halo of his own after death. Recently, he’s been canonized as a saint by the Catholic Church.

Acutis died in 2006 at the age of 15, and during his years he built a website documenting miracles from around the world. He had a special fondness for technology – and on top of website development, that meant videogames. Super Mario, Pokemon, and Halo were chief among them.

His funeral was the site of a miracle, according to Acutis’ mother: “A woman with breast cancer prayed (for) Carlo and she had to start chemotherapy and the cancer disappeared completely.”

“The fact that you can think of a saint doing the same things [as you],” said an attendee at Acutis’ funeral, “it feels so much closer than what other saints have felt like in the past.”

Acutis reportedly limited himself to an hour per day of game-time, and had a diverse set of consoles to choose from. He was gifted a PlayStation at the age of 8, and had the Nintendo consoles to play exclusives like Pokemon and Mario. He also enjoyed Halo quite a bit, which certainly hints that he completed the console trinity — though the PC Port of Halo CE came out in 2003, well within his lifetime. Though if he was playing Halo on console, he could have played Halo 2 as well – that PC port didn’t release until 2007.

The modernity of Acutis’ life is something that the people around him want to emphasize, in an attempt to shed the vision of Catholism, (especially its saints), as something stuffy and old. “(With) all the media, the technologies, it seems sometimes that holiness is something that belongs to the past.” Said Acutis’ mother. “Instead, holiness is also something nowadays in this modern time.”

The Legacy of The Gamer Saint

Formally granted the title of Saint, Carlo Acutis’ memory can live on in several unique ways. A pilgrimage site in Assisi now holds his body – preserved in wax. He’s also got a feast day dedicated to him: October 12th. Parishes and religious schools can also bear his name.

The miracle mentioned earlier was not, however, one of the two used to canonize someone as a saint. Instead, these two incidents were chosen:

• In 2020, a Brazilian mother took her son, sick with cancer, to a church, offering prayers to Acutis and a kiss to a relic associated with him. The son’s condition improved soon after.
• In 2022, a woman in Costa Rica fell from her bike and had a brain hemorrhage. Her mother went to Carlo’s tomb and prayed – and the daughter recovered that day.

Acutis’ rise to sainthood was delayed due to the death of Pope Francis, initially scheduled for April. With Pope Leo coming in to replace him, Carlo Acutis was declared a saint on Sept. 7th, 2025.