As Pope Leo XIV approached in the Popemobile, Evelyn Moreira could feel herself trembling.
After a 4 a.m. wakeup call and hours waiting under the hot Roman sun in St. Peter’s Square, Moreira and 50 other pilgrims from Los Angeles waited at the end of the Sept. 7 joint canonization Mass of Sts. Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis for Leo to pass by their section.
The moment didn’t disappoint.
Next to Moreira was a family she’d never met before: Maria Jose Estrada from Puebla, Mexico, with her husband and toddler son, Juan Diego, who suffers from a rare, life-threatening genetic disorder. As Leo passed, his vehicle stopped to pick up Juan Diego, almost 2 years old, for a blessing. Moreira had a split second to get the pope’s attention.
“He turned around when I repeated ‘Los Angeles,’ ” recalled Moreira. “Then I said, ‘Immigration in Los Angeles,’ and ‘Pray, pray, pray,’ and he just started nodding.”
The pope clearly got the message.
“I was heard by the pope, and it’s just giving me more hope,” said Moreira, a parishioner of St. Agnes Church, a heavily Latino parish near downtown LA where undocumented parishioners have suffered the effects of this summer’s federal immigration sweeps.
For pilgrims like Moreira, traveling to Rome for the canonization Mass in a Jubilee Year was about more than witnessing a moment in history, or seeing the new pope up close. It was a chance to pray, reflect, and find hope for their own lives with help from the saints — especially the Church’s two newest ones.
“Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati give us a chance to be rejuvenated because they are closer to our age,” LA Auxiliary Bishop Matt Elshoff told Angelus during the pilgrimage. “It’s an exciting time for the Church.”
Elshoff led the pilgrimage together with LA priests Msgr. Norm Priebe, Father John Schiavone, and Father Miguel Angel Ruiz. The four of them concelebrated the canonization Mass with Pope Leo, along with another priest of the LA Archdiocese with a powerful connection to the day’s events, Father Juan Gutierrez.
Eight years ago, Gutierrez had prayed a novena to then-Blessed Frassati after tearing his Achilles tendon playing basketball. His ankle’s inexplicable, sudden healing during the novena was investigated by the Vatican and last year it was declared the second verified miracle needed for Frassati’s canonization.
As he listened to Leo deliver his homily from a few yards away at the Mass, Gutierrez’s eyes drifted toward the giant tapestry with Frassati’s image hanging on the front of St. Peter’s Basilica.
“Mission accomplished,” he thought to himself.
“It was a very peaceful experience,” said Gutierrez, who was joined in Rome by relatives from Mexico and a few friends from Los Angeles. “There was a sense that something had come to fulfillment.”
That sense of fulfillment peaked at the beginning of the Mass when Leo pronounced the formula of canonization, which officially inscribes Frassati’s and Acutis’ names in the Catholic Church’s catalogue of saints.
Describing Jesus’ call in the Sunday Gospel to abandon all of one’s possessions in order to become a disciple, Leo said in his homily that God “calls us to abandon ourselves without hesitation to the adventure that he offers us.”
Like other saints such as St. Francis of Assisi and St. Augustine, Frassati and Acutis faced the same “crossroad” in life, Leo said.
“Sts. Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis are an invitation to all of us, especially young people, not to squander our lives, but to direct them upwards and make them masterpieces,” said Leo.
Among the 80,000 people in St. Peter’s Square for the canonization, the faces — and words — of Frassati and Acutis seemed to be everywhere, from T-shirts to hats and banners.
Sitting next to the LA pilgrims under the hot sun were students from Milan’s Leo XIII Institute, the Jesuit high school Acutis attended before dying from a brief battle with leukemia. One of them, Sophia, admitted that her school’s link to Acutis put her in an “awkward” position.
“On one side it’s great, because he’s a saint,” said Sophia. “On the other, you feel the pressure of being original, because [Acutis] once said that all of us are born originals, but many die as photocopies.”
“I’m praying for Carlo to help us in every way possible,” she added.
Leo XIII’s campus minister, Father Alessandro Viano, SJ, said he’s seen the clear mark that the saintly alum has left on the school. But he wasn’t in Rome only because of Acutis: he also attended the same Jesuit high school as Frassati in Turin.
“It’s a great emotion, and I’m very happy that these two are being proclaimed saints together,” said Viano. “It wasn’t planned like this.”
Several from the Los Angeles group said they didn’t have a special devotion to either saint before the pilgrimage. But others like Melissa Orte of Russell, Kansas, did.
Orte was scrolling Instagram last year when an image of a scripted necklace reading “Verso l’alto” (“To the heights”) from a Catholic store caught her eye. Clicking on the link, she began reading up on the inspirational quote’s author, Pier Giorgio Frassati, and realized they had the same April 6 birthday.
“I instantly felt a connection,” said Orte. “Then after that, he just kept popping up in my life in different ways, there were a lot of similarities in our lives.”
When the Vatican announced the Sept. 7 date of Frassati’s canonization, Orte wanted to attend, but wasn’t sure how. She started looking for a pilgrimage to join, but finding the right one (on a budget) wasn’t easy.
“I just had a battle with my head and my heart,” said Orte. “Like my heart’s saying go, and my head’s like, ‘this is impractical.’ ”
One day at her daughter-in-law’s house this summer, the LA pilgrimage led by Elshoff appeared in a Google search. When she called the tour director, she was told it was full. A few hours later, he called. There was actually one spot left.
“I’ve met some amazing men and women on this trip,” Orte told Angelus. “We’ve had some special blessings. It was the chance of a lifetime, and I’m excited to see what other blessings [Frassati] brings along the way.”
For all that the LA pilgrims received during their six days in Italy — blessings, relics, encouragement, and plenty of memories — they were also there to give.
After seeing her son be blessed by the pope, Maria Jose Estrada explained that “The only thing that can save my son is God and Carlitos’ intercession.” His disease, known as Niemann Pick Disease Type C, doesn’t allow the body to properly transport cholesterol and other fats inside cells. Juan Diego is not expected to live to adulthood.
But Estrada said Acutis has already been answering prayers. When her son’s medical insurance declined to pay for life-saving medicine, friends and family rallied to pray to Acutis for help. Later that night, the insurance company called to say they’d authorized the medicine.
“Heaven opens up,” said Estrada after the Mass. “God is here, and I can’t help but think that Carlo helped us experience what our hearts desired today.”
But the hours spent in St. Peter’s Square also gave Estrada a chance to share her story with complete strangers.
“It seems like everyone from this Los Angeles group has told me they’re praying for Juan Diego,” said Estrada. “They said they’re going to fight for him, so that the door of prayer can be opened.”
One of the LA pilgrims had something to give her before saying goodbye.
“She told me, ‘Here’s my number, so you can tell me about the miracle when it happens.’ ”
