It isn’t every day you go to a papal Mass, let alone one with a canonization. This was the reminder I kept giving my family over nearly two hours in St. Peter’s Square, as the Rome sun slowly pushed away the shade that had kept us relatively cool and comfortable during the first part of Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati’s canonization Mass. 

I reminded myself, too, as old church ladies pushed their way past my children to try to beat them through security. I told myself that this was the body of Christ and also tried to imagine that these women had each suffered some kind of mysterious personal disappointment that had brought them to this pushy state, so that I could feel sorry for them instead of being irritated.

O.K., the complaining is out of the way. 

The canonization of these two young men was also, as you might expect, an incredibly joyous affair. Even waiting for it to start recalled the saying attributed to St. Catherine of Siena, “All the way to heaven is heaven,” with people from all over the world standing in line together for hours to be admitted into St. Peter’s Square for the Heavenly Banquet. Waiting for Mass to begin, we met other Americans from Minnesota, Missouri and Virginia. We also met Slovenians and, of course, Italians.

A T-shirt featuring Carlo Acutis, the first millennial saint, at the canonization Mass, Sept. 7, 2025. Credit: Maggie Phillips

As the crowd slowly funneled through the security barriers and then various metal detectors, pilgrim groups from all over were praying rosaries, chanting, clapping and singing songs. (Why is it that American pilgrim groups never seem to have songs?) People in our crowd waved to a woman who had leaned out of her apartment window to watch us while we waited. She smiled and waved back. Elsewhere in the line, people noticed the exchange and waved to her, too. Again, she graciously smiled and returned their wave. Eventually, people were cheering and clapping for her, and she leaned into it, shaking her clasped hands over her head and grinning.

Waiting to be admitted to the iconic horseshoe-shaped outdoor space for this momentous occasion had some of the feeling of a football tailgate. It is probably just the American in me, but in that atmosphere, I half-expected some kind of “pre-game” entertainment. I reflexively anticipated hearing a suave disembodied voice over a loudspeaker announcing something like, “Ladies and gentlemen, in just a few moments, your Vatican Swiss Guard parachute team will descend from 13,000 feet with the gifts that will be brought forward for consecration during the Mass,” before playing “Jump,” by Van Halen. (Too many Army-Navy football games in college, probably.)

Once inside the square, we saw the always-imposing edifice of St. Peter’s Basilica, draped with banners bearing the likenesses of the two soon-to-be-saints. My daughter had enough foresight to remember her binoculars, so we passed them around to get a better view of Pope Leo from our view in the cheap seats. Because so many of the announcements were in Italian and the logistics made an opening procession all but impossible, it wasn’t until the choir started the Kyrie that I properly understood Mass was underway. I know enough liturgical Latin from my church choir days to have kept the family abreast of which part of the Mass we were at, but we weren’t quite sure when the canonization part had officially happened. After all, it isn’t as though they could invite the honorees forward to come accept a plaque. 

From where we stood, despite the pomp and circumstance and the Latin, it was perhaps not the most reverent Mass. This was likely due to the heat. Even the religious sister next to us eventually decided to sit for the duration and follow along with a broadcast of the Mass on her phone. Youth groups who had been in the sun longer than us made pillows out of their backpacks and leaned back on them. People milled around. My husband told me about how one woman eventually decided to break into the supply of plums that she had evidently brought with her. Admittedly, I finally broke down and let my daughter have some Cheez-Its. 

View from the “cheap seats” at the canonization Mass for Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati on Sept. 7, 2025. Credit: Maggie Phillips

When it was time for Communion, the crowd rushed forward. “Where are we going?” one of my kids asked. “How will we get there?” “No one knows for sure,” I answered, “But we all seem to be figuring it out together.” Because we know Jesus is out there waiting for us, I thought.

And that, essentially, is the Catholic Church in a nutshell, whatever the imperfections, the inconveniences, the discomforts, the annoyances we have with each other. We’re all figuring out together how to get to Jesus. On this day, at this particular Mass, my family didn’t find him in the host. There were too many people, and it was too hard to make out the route to receive Communion. We were still waiting when Pope Leo got up to start the final blessing, and I saw someone who had decided to turn back. They turned to their companion and said something in a Romance language—it might have been espiritualmente, spiritualmente or spirituellement—I couldn’t quite make it out, and I certainly can’t remember now. All the same, I understood enough and thought, “Of course!” 

“We’ll just make an act of spiritual communion, guys,” I told the family as we followed suit, turning back without receiving Communion. “Jesus understands.” A fellow member of the body of Christ had helped my family without even realizing it, and the shared tradition of our Catholic faith had equipped us to understand that God would not leave us unsatisfied.

I saw fewer young Americans than I had anticipated, most likely due to the rescheduling of Carlo Acutis’s canonization, originally scheduled to occur in April before Pope Francis’ death, and coming so soon after the Jubilee for Youth just a month ago. 

I met some study abroad students from Franciscan University of Steubenville after Mass, who, I learned from a requested show of hands, were there primarily for Pier Giorgio, although they were happy for Carlo Acutis’s canonization as well. There was also the appeal of seeing the new pope. “I’m just a really big fan of Pope Leo,” Cecilia Downs said. “I really wanted to come see him.” Joe Norton said Pier Giorgio was his confirmation saint when he was still a blessed. He remembers wondering when his patron would ever be made a saint, never imagining he would attend his canonization. “It’s a blessing to be here,” Norton said.

“I turned over to someone during Mass, and I was like whoa, like the Catholic Church is universal,” Theresa, another member of the Steubenville study abroad group, said. “It’s so cool to see. You say the Catholic Church is universal, but to actually see—it’s another thing.”

It was only their first day on the job as canonized saints, but Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati were already fulfilling their roles of drawing people to Christ. If this dispatch is comparatively light on them as individuals, it’s because it reflects my experience as a non-Italian speaker. I also don’t think they would especially mind that my experience of their canonization Mass was primarily the Mass itself. St. Carlo was a daily Mass attendee, and it was St. Pier Giorgio who urged us to “approach the eucharistic table as often as possible.”

“Today was so beautiful for me,” Sally, one of the Franciscan students, told me after Mass. “Just seeing Catholics from all different countries, all different places, all different ages gather for these two people who were such wonderful examples of how to be a good Catholic and how to live in Christ’s footsteps. Seeing everyone gather for that and just to honor them—and through that honor Christ—was awesome.”

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