Catholic nerd pilgrimage: Saint Carlo Acutis (St John Berchmans)

Carlo Acutis is not the first saint in this project whose life intersected with my own,  but he is the first whose life was entirely within my own (not to mention being the most recently canonized—the first I’d heard of him, in fact, was when I was making the spreadsheet of parishes, saints and feast days). 

St Carlos Acustic parish has two churches, so I went to St John Berchmans in Logan Square. The church as a building is rather undistinguished: a brick façade and almost austere interior, although the stations of the cross¹ are quite nice (they almost feel like they were taken from another church.

The brick façade of the front of the churchThe interior of teh church with a plain white vaulted ceiling A small sculpture of Jesus being nailed to the cross that’s part of the stations of the cross at this church

But churches aren’t buildings, they’re the people within them and while the 9.30a Mass was sparsely attended, it was one of the most diverse groups of people I’ve seen in a parish: young, old, families, differing races and ethnicities. The liturgy was lively and while the language in the prayer of the faithful was indirect, it clearly speaking with disapproval of the attacks on the people of Chicago by ICE. And as I walked into the church, there were a couple women passing out Carlo Acutis stickers and lapel pins of the eucharist.

A sticker with a cartoon image of Carlo Acutis  with the message, “The eucharist is the highway to heaven” and a lapel pin of a monstrance sitting on the keyboard of my computer—I figured since Carlo Acutis is the patron saint of programmers and the internet, my computer keyboard would be a good backdrop for this photo.A photo of a bust of Carlo Acutis at a side altar in the churchA photo of Carlo Acutis which was on display at the front of the church. In front of the photo is a basket with a soccer ball and iPad that were brought into the church during the opening procession. The altar boy who brought the soccer ball in couldn’t resist tossing it in the air (just a few inches) as he carried it).

I often ask myself as I attend Mass in different parishes if this is someplace that I could call my spiritual home, and this definitely felt like it could be a community that I would be happy to be part of.


  1. I’m used to the presence of the stations of the cross in every Catholic church so I don’t really think about them, but a recent discussion on Bluesky pointed out to me that for protestants and Jews, they’re deeply weird. This, in turn, reminded my of a joke from the Dave Allen show:

    There once was a Jewish boy who misbehaved so much, that he was expelled from every school his parents enrolled him in. Finally, out of desperation, they sent him to a Catholic school.

    After a few weeks, not only was the boy not expelled, but he got good grades and was deemed a model student.

    Surprised, but pleased, his parents asked him what changed.

    “Well,” the boy said, “the first thing I saw when I walked into the classroom was a Jewish guy nailed to a cross and I figured I’d better shape up.”


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