Relíquias, milagres, mistérios: a construção da devoção ao beato Carlo Acutis no Brasil

Abstract

Carlo Acutis (1991-2006), also known as the "patron saint of the Internet" and the "first millennial saint", will be the first person born after the 1990s to be canonized as a saint by the catholic church in 2025 (this year). This work is an ethnographic investigation into the devotion to Blessed Carlo Acutis in Brazil, mainly centered at the Capela do Milagre in Campo Grande/MS - one of the places where this devotion originates and where the first miracle interceded by the Blessed and accepted by the Vatican as such took place. Based on fieldwork carried out on site and on the web, and on an effort to articulate the related literature, with an emphasis on authors from the anthropology of religion and Christianity, I investigate the issues at stake in the nascent devotion to Acutis through elements like: the use and preparation of his relics and devotional practices, the miracles and signs attributed to him by my interlocutors, and his relationship with Marian devotion, among others. It is on the categories of healing, marvels, the tensions between the ordinary/extraordinary, talking and others that I base a possible analysis of this event.