Media Release

A teenager dubbed ‘God’s influencer’ and ‘patron saint of the internet’ is being commemorated in a new school at Villawood’s Rathdowne Wollert community in Melbourne’s north.

Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools opened the Carlo Acutis Catholic Primary School this year to more than 100 pupils at Wollert, paying homage to a young Italian web designer who died of leukaemia at age 15 in 2006.

Beatified in 2020, Carlo built a website cataloguing every reported Eucharistic miracle and official apparition of Christ’s mother Mary around the world. He is poised to this year become the first millennial saint.

The new Carlo Acutis Primary is being built over four stages and will eventually educate some 600 students. It is the fourth school within Epping’s St Peter’s Parish.

Principal Damian Howard has spent the past year overseeing the school’s construction and fit-out and building close links with the Rathdowne community.

“There’s been such goodwill toward the school, the architects have been great, even the builders have bought into the story of Carlo,” he says.

“One lady, struck by leukaemia herself, has donated $80K of textiles and materials to the school.

“I’ve met every school family and we have a great little community already.”

Damian has visited Assisi in Italy, where Carlo’s body lies in state, and met with his mother, Antonia.

Numerous images he photographed of patterns and features in churches and sites in Assisi have been incorporated into graphics, artwork and decorative fixtures in the new school.

Similarly, arches from the Basilica of St Francis in Assisi have been embraced within the design of the school’s front entry.

Construction will be an ongoing activity as further stages are added to cater for the school’s waiting list.

The initial stage includes flexible learning areas, specialist learning areas, play spaces, an adventure play area, landscaping, library, sporting and admin facilities.

On completion, the school will feature three buildings, landscaped gardens, basketball court, soccer field, playgrounds and open play spaces.

Carlo Acutis was beatified in 2020 after a Brazilian boy with a pancreatic defect was cured, following his mother’s prayers to Carlo to help her son.

The second miracle involved the reported healing of a Costa Rican girl who suffered a serious head injury after falling off her bicycle in Florence. Her mother prayed at Acutis’ tomb in Assisi, and her daughter made a full recovery.