A life plan to follow as we return to the classroom- A Back-to-School message from Bishop O'Connell

On Sept. 7, 2025, Our Holy Father Pope Leo XIV will canonize the first saints of his papacy: Blessed Carlo Acutis (1991-2006) and Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati (1901-1925). The Church has eagerly awaited these canonizations, each one representing extraordinary holiness among very ordinary young people who lived during the last 100 years; Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati at their beginning and Blessed Carlo Acutis at their end.

Blessed Carlo Acutis, in particular, is of special significance and attraction to school age children in our Diocese since I have designated him as a “patron of Catholic youth” here. Blessed Carlo died as a teenager but not without leaving his mark on the world around him.
As we begin a new school year, I offer Blessed Carlo to our young people returning to Catholic schools and parish religious education programs as a model for their own lives. As a boy, he used to say, “to always be close to Jesus is my ‘life plan’.”  And so it was.  Catholic education provides our young people with the opportunity and means to develop that “plan” in and out of the classroom.

We had the good fortune to meet Blessed Carlo’s mother when she visited our Diocese in fall 2023 and to hear about his early life, his love for prayer, his daily devotion to the Eucharist and to the Blessed Mother, his concern and care for others, especially the poor.  He pursued this “plan” while living the ordinary, normal life of a teenager.

As Bishop of the Diocese, I encourage and invite parents, priests, teachers and all the faithful to begin this Jubilee Year of his canonization in a new school year by embracing, learning and teaching about “Blessed, soon-to-be Saint Carlo” and by helping young people make his “plan” their own each in their own way.  Display his picture, tell his story, pray before the Eucharist, say the Rosary in our Catholic classrooms in the year ahead and treat peers and all people with love and respect.

It is my hope that our Catholic children and teens will often be reminded of Carlo Acutis’ own words: that “our lives will truly be beautiful only if we discover how to love God above all things and our neighbor as ourselves (Carlo Acutis).”

That’s the “plan.”  That’s what Catholic schools teach. St. Carlo Acutis, pray for us.

Photo credit: M. Ehrmann