How Gen Z saint Carlo Acutis is rebooting Maltese faith—one Instagram story at a time

The story of Saint Carlo Acutis, God’s Gen Z influencer
By Hot Malta staff | 14 min read

Valletta’s 400-year-old parish church of St Dominic was unusually packed last Tuesday evening—not for a wedding or festa, but for a live-streamed Mass in honour of a 15-year-old boy who never set foot on the island. Teenagers in hoodies sat beside grandmothers clutching rosaries, all staring up at the projector screen as Archbishop Charles Scicluna lifted a host emblazoned with a pixelated monstrance. “Meet Blessed Carlo Acutis,” the archbishop smiled, “the first millennial on the road to sainthood, and probably the only saint who could fix your Wi-Fi while praying for you.”

That blend of fibre-optic and faith is exactly why Carlo, who died of leukaemia in 2006, is exploding across Malta. Dubbed “God’s influencer”, the London-born Italian teenager catalogued every Eucharistic miracle in history on a website he built between PlayStation matches. Since his beatification in 2020, parishes from Birkirkara to Gozo have reported a surge in First Communion enrolments, with kids asking to dress like Carlo—jeans, Nike Airs and a hoodie—rather than the traditional sailor suit.

Local context matters. Malta already tops global charts for daily Mass attendance among under-25s (27 %, according to 2022 Church surveys), but priests noticed the demographic was tilting older. “We were bleeding the 10-to-15 bracket,” admits Fr Joe Micallef, youth chaplain at the University of Malta. “Then Carlo arrived, and suddenly confirmation classes are Tik-Toking the Eucharistic miracles he mapped.” One of those miracles is itself Maltese: the 1570 Host-turned-flesh in nearby Lanciano, which Carlo featured on his site. Youth pastor Claire Pace, 28, from Sliema, created a Maltese-language Instagram reel explaining the science behind the relic; it clocked 38 k views in 48 hours.

The cultural crossover is impossible to miss. During last week’s Malta Comic Con, artist Chris Pace unveiled a limited-edition sticker of Carlo holding a rosary in one hand and a Game Boy in the other. All 250 prints sold out in 90 minutes. “He’s basically the patron saint of the LAN-party generation,” laughs Chris, whose next project is a mural in Paceville showing Carlo haloed by Ethernet cables. Even non-believers are joining the hype. Gaming café owner Luke Azzopardi, 24, installed a “Pray & Play” corner: customers who pause for a three-minute reflection card get 10 % off their Fortnite session. “It started as a marketing gag,” Luke shrugs, “but we’ve handed out 400 cards in a month.”

Behind the memes lies a deeper community impact. Carlo’s emphasis on the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist has pushed Maltese parishes to revive nocturnal adoration, a tradition fading since the 1980s. At St George’s Basilica in Gozo, 600 people queued for an all-night vigil modelled on Carlo’s “Eucharistic marathon” idea. Volunteers under 18 ran the livestream, translated prayers into Maltese sign language and even built a Telegram bot that pings intentions to adorers’ phones. Basilica rector Fr David Vella says confession queues stretched around the piazza until 4 a.m. “We ran out of priests,” he laughs. “Had to wake up two retired monks.”

Schools are catching on. Stella Maris College in Gżira replaced its annual technology fair with a “Carlo Code” hackathon. Students built faith-based apps: one tracks Mass times island-wide; another uses AI to match daily Gospel readings with Instagram filters. Winner of the €500 prize: a 13-year-old who coded a Minecraft server where players rebuild Maltese churches block by block, unlocking catechetical facts at each level. Principal Marisa Camilleri admits she was sceptical. “Then I saw 200 kids choosing church architecture over parkour maps. Carlo’s intercession, perhaps?”

Not everyone is thrilled. Some older parishioners grumble that the youth are “trivialising the sacred”. But Archbishop Scicluna counters that inculturation has always been Maltese DNA. “We turned pagan temples into baroque parishes; now we turn Instagram stories into Gospel parables,” he told reporters. “Carlo is simply the newest stained-glass window.”

The economic ripple is tangible. At least three local start-ups now sell “Carlo-approved” wristbands with NFC chips that open a daily Bible verse on your phone. Heritage Malta is weighing a VR exhibit where users walk through Carlo’s 3-D model of Eucharistic miracle sites, starting with the Mdina cathedral crypt. Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo hinted at a “Faith & Fibre” package targeting Italian youth groups, combining 5G coworking spaces with pilgrim hostel discounts.

Carlo’s canonisation miracle—still under Vatican investigation—involves a Brazilian boy healed after touching a relic. Malta wants in. Doctors at Mater Dei Hospital have submitted CT scans of a local child whose inoperable brain lesion vanished after attending a Carlo prayer group. If verified, the island could host the official thanksgiving Mass, catapulting Malta into the global sacramental spotlight.

Conclusion
Whether you’re a devout Catholic, a lapsed believer or simply a gamer curious about the kid who coded for Christ, Carlo Acutis has become Malta’s newest cultural Rorschach test: a mirror reflecting the island’s hunger to stay relevant while keeping the faith. As the last streamers leave Valletta’s church, teenagers swap Snapchat handles and elderly women light candles—both generations convinced that holiness, like a good Wi-Fi signal, is strongest when shared. In the words of Fr Joe Micallef: “Carlo didn’t just evangelise the internet; he downloaded heaven into our timeline.” And in a country where the parish still doubles as the village Facebook, that download might just be the upgrade Maltese spirituality was waiting for.