From Germany come accusations of anti-Semitism against Carlo Acutis: he allegedly highlighted even ancient Eucharistic miracles linked to accusations against Jews and the resulting persecutions.

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Can a young person like Carlo Acutis really be accused of anti-Semitism?

A story that emerged in recent days, coinciding with the canonization (together with Pier Giorgio Frassati) that took place yesterday at the Vatican.

In the background is a collection of 108 Eucharistic miracles that Carlo Acutis, at just twelve years old, published on a website that later became famous: an archive that also included episodes from the past related to accusations of desecration blamed on Jews.

These accusations often led to violence and persecutions against Jewish communities.

Thus Felix Klein, the German representative for the fight against anti-Semitism, raised the accusation against the Catholic Church of not adequately addressing the issue during the beatification and canonization process of Acutis, reopening a wound from the past.

 

The response of theologian Marco Bernini

This has generated, especially in the German world, various accusations of anti-Semitism, strongly rejected by don Marco Bernini, professor of Liturgical Studies at the Theological Faculty of Trier.

Speaking on the program “Deutschlandfunk“, Bernini explained that these are totally inappropriate accusations because Carlo Acutis was not a historian but simply a boy who conducted personal research on the web about Eucharistic miracles.

He never showed nor revealed any intention to spread stereotypes or blame Jews. Connections that Acutis probably completely ignored.

Moreover, the scholar added, the canonization that took place yesterday, September 7, does not concern the canonization of medieval Eucharistic miracles, but that «of a fifteen-year-old boy who collected them».

 

Carlo Acutis and Andrea Grillo’s criticisms

Bernini himself suggests that Carlo was an extraordinary fifteen-year-old, despite his normalcy, as he embodied an authentic passion for faith and the Eucharist. This should be the basis for judgments about him.

Recently, we published (in Italian) on UCCR a detailed response to another critique received by Carlo Acutis.

We refer to the words of theologian Andrea Grillo, according to whom adults close to Carlo would have conveyed to him an image of the Eucharist that was unbalanced, so much so that he spoke of “Eucharistic miseducation”.

The theologian Father Maurizio Buioni, interviewed by us, responded to Grillo emphasizing that while it is correct to denounce the risk of a Eucharistic spirituality stuck on extraordinary signs, it is wrong to delegitimize popular piety and reduce holiness to an academic issue.

«Carlo was not a theologian, but a teenager in love with the Eucharist», wrote Don Buioni. «His faith is not systematic, but experiential; not doctrinal, but affective. And in this, perhaps, lies his prophetic strength».