Carlo died in 2006, when most of Boland’s students were still very young, and technology has only grown more powerful and sophisticated since his passing, she noted.
“My hope is that with his canonization, he will become more widely known and his story of witnessing to the faith, guiding others to conversion, and his interests in technology will be spread more broadly,” Boland told CNA.
“I think his witness can help draw more young people into the faith and also empower those who are Catholic to develop methods to make their faith more accessible in a world that is driven by technology and data.”
Boland said she sees a connection between her field — data science — and Carlo’s efforts to use technology to make Eucharistic miracles more known.
“Data science, the field I teach and work in, is a field that utilizes data to derive knowledge, validate our understanding of scientific principles, and gain novel insights,” she continued.
“Carlo’s use of data and visualization techniques to bring the story of Eucharistic miracles to those whose knowledge of their faith is limited (or nonexistent) is a perfect example of an application that would fall under the realm of ‘data science’ today. Methods that use data science to shed light on aspects of Catholicism are very much needed today.”
Modestly describing himself as “mildly tech-savvy,” Nathaniel Hanson, who works in high-level robotics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston, told CNA that Carlo’s use of his technological skills to further God’s kingdom demonstrated that “you can use technology as a means to glorify God and to make the world a better place, and that can be a path to a saintly life.”
For his part, much of Hanson’s work focuses on using his skills in robotics to create systems that help victims of natural disasters, which Hanson sees as a way of living out his faith’s call to respect the God-given dignity of every person and using “technology to elevate their dignity.”
Hanson, 27, is a few years younger than Carlo. He said faith is not regularly discussed in the tech-focused circles he works in, but he has occasionally encountered surprise from colleagues when they find out he’s Catholic.
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“Sometimes in intellectual circles, there can be this idea that the natural progression of intellect leads you to atheism or agnosticism,” he explained.
In light of this, it’s “really exciting to have the first computer scientist saint being named” — for Catholics at large but for scientific-minded Catholics especially, he said.
“Because of the pressures of the sciences and the disciplines, it is important that they see and point to someone who, even though he was so very young when he died, still dedicated his life to using technology to build the kingdom on Earth. I think that’s a very important call that we, as scientists and engineers, need to see.”
In Boston, where Hanson lives and works, many current and former Catholics take a dim view of the Church, in part because of the abuse scandals. In light of this, Hanson said he hopes Carlo’s canonization will provide “a good conversation starting point” to draw tech-minded people closer to the faith.
Other young Catholic professionals working in scientific fields similarly said they appreciate Carlo’s public witness to the fact that faith and science are not mutually exclusive but rather harmonious.
David Ramirez, an assistant professor of chemistry at Brescia University, a Catholic college in Kentucky, told CNA that he had heard of Carlo Acutis years ago but didn’t delve deeper into his story until recently when he learned about Carlo’s aptitude for computer programming, “which I had come to embrace as part of my graduate studies.”
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