The Diocese of Erie will be one of only 39 dioceses and organizations in the United States to host the relics of two people who were deeply devoted to the Eucharist. So, who were St. Manuel González García and Blessed Carlo Acutis?
St. Manuel González García was born on Feb. 25, 1877 in Seville, Spain. He became an ordained priest on Sept. 21, 1901 and in 1902, he was sent by the bishop of Seville, Spain, to preach a mission in a small town; what the saint found was a discouragingly unkempt and an abandoned church.
The experience inspired him to kneel before the tabernacle and dedicate himself to Christ, abandoned in tabernacles all over the world. He also was well-known for his care for the poor and hungry.
When he died in 1940, he asked to be buried next to a tabernacle, “so that my bones, after death, as my tongue and my pen in life, are saying to those who pass: there is Jesus! There it is! Do not leave him abandoned!”
He is sometimes referred to as the Bishop of the Abandoned Tabernacle.
St. Manuel was canonized by Pope Francis on Oct. 16, 2016.
Additional information, for those interested, can be found at The National Catholic Register which offers a good summary of a recent book based on his writings at https://www.ncregister.com/blog/st-manuel-gonzalez-garcia-bishop-of-the-abandoned–
tabernacle.
Blessed Carlo Acutis of Italy, was born on May 3, 1991 in London, England. He is well-known as the first millennial to be named a blessed. There are several steps on the way to being canonized a saint. Blessed Carlo has been beatified but not yet canonized, and so is referred to as Blessed.
His witness of faith led to a deep conversion in his mom, because, according to the priest promoting his cause for sainthood, he “managed to drag his relatives, his parents to Mass every day. It was not the other way around; it was not his parents bringing the little boy to Mass, but it was he who managed to get himself to Mass and to convince others to receive Communion daily.”
He is best known for the website he created, the official English site for the Association and Cause for the Canonization of Carlo Acutis can be found at https://carloacutis-en.org/. It includes a link to an English version of the website he created about Eucharistic miracles, available at http://www.miracolieucaristici.org/.
In early 2020, Pope Francis approved a miracle attributed to Carlo: the healing of a young Brazilian boy from a rare congenital disease of the pancreas after he touched a photo of Carlo, asking for healing. On Oct. 10, 2020, Carlo was beatified and proclaimed Blessed at Assisi, Italy, where he is buried.
He died of an aggressive form of leukemia in October 2006 at the age of 15.
The relics of St. Manuel González García and Blessed Carlo Acutis will be on tour in the region later this month.
