From Malawi to Houston: Catholic schools around the world named after Carlo Acutis
Rome Newsroom, Sep 1, 2025
As Pope Leo XIV prepares to proclaim Blessed Carlo Acutis a saint in Rome on Sept. 7, thousands of miles away at the foot of Michiru Mountain in Malawi, students at a Catholic high school bearing his name are preparing a celebration of their own.
“Our students look up to him as a model in their faith,” Grace Matumba, a leader in campus ministry at Carlo Acutis Catholic High School in Blantyre, Malawi, told CNA. “He was a young man who gave his life for Christ.
The high school, which opened in 2022 with just 90 students, has since grown to accommodate 300, with boarding facilities for girls and a dedicated computer lab. It forms part of a Catholic education complex that includes a nursery, primary, and college — each under the patronage of modern Catholic figures such as Mother Teresa, John Paul II, and now Acutis, who will soon be the Church’s first millennial saint.
From African cities to American suburbs and from Australia to Wales, schools named after the Italian teenager known for his Eucharistic devotion and computer savvy are multiplying rapidly. More than a dozen schools already bear his name, many of which will soon be undergoing a name change from “Blessed” to “St. Carlo Acutis.”
Virtual schools embrace digital saint
In the Diocese of Madison, Wisconsin, Blessed Carlo Acutis Academy is a virtual Catholic school that serves students in grades 5–12 across 11 largely rural counties, where Catholic high schools are scarce.
Assistant Superintendent Therese Milbrath said the online structure has been a blessing for diverse families. “We have home-school families who reach out and say … ‘Math has gotten to the point where I can’t teach it to my child anymore,’” she said. Others include students with autism who find it easier to focus outside a classroom, military families on the move, and even an ambitious young hockey player looking for more ice time.
“It’s interesting because we’re just seeing a lot of different needs pop up,” Milbrath said. “The bulk of our students are in the Diocese of Madison, but we do take students from outside of the diocese.”
While virtual, the school named for the Church’s first computer-coding saint remains distinctly Catholic: Live sessions begin with prayer, religion is required every semester for full-time students, and Catholicism is infused throughout the curriculum.
The Archdiocese of Miami has gone a step further with the Carlo Acutis Virtual Academy, or CAVA, the country’s first archdiocese-sanctioned online Catholic school that is Cognia-accredited, meaning it meets rigorous, internationally recognized standards of education. Offering K–12 education, CAVA was inspired by the life and legacy of Acutis and his use of technology in “recognizing its potential to spread the message of faith to the digital generation.”
“We bring students closer to one another and closer to Jesus,” the virtual academy states in its mission.
Australia looks to Assisi
On the other side of the globe, Carlo Acutis Catholic Primary School in Melbourne, Australia, opened in 2025 — just months before Acutis’ canonization. Founding Principal Damian Howard traveled 10,000 miles to Italy to meet Acutis’ mother in Assisi while planning the school.
“That took me on a journey of a lot of discovery in terms of finding out about Carlo, coming up with the colors of the school … navy and red, which were his favorite colors, and also just happens to be the colors of the town flag of Assisi,” Howard said.
The school’s design echoes the brickwork of the Assisi church where Acutis is buried, St. Mary Major. Howard said the school’s values — faith, service, generosity, and courage — were chosen to mirror the life of the young Italian who once stood up to bullies and cared for the homeless.
“We’re indelibly entwined with Assisi and with Carlo’s story, our little school all the way out here in Australia,” Howard said.
The new school already has 110 students, with an 80-person waiting list, and plans to expand to 550 students in coming years. Acutis’ family even gave the school a first-class relic of their son for the school chapel.
School openings coincide with canonization
In the United States, the Chesterton Academy of Blessed Carlo Acutis in Grand Junction, Colorado, is scheduled to open this fall as part of the Chesterton Schools Network. Inspired by Acutis’ joy-filled embrace of faith and technology, local Catholic families said they had long dreamed of a high school but only found the way forward after the pandemic.
In Alberta, Canada, Blessed Carlo Acutis Catholic High School in Camrose opens its doors Sept. 2. The Elk Island Catholic Schools district says the name will soon change to “St. Carlo Acutis” once the canonization is official.
Acutis has also become a unifying figure as Catholic schools consolidate under his patronage. Bishop Louis Tylka of Peoria, Illinois, announced that three Catholic schools will merge this fall as the Academy of Carlo Acutis, following a process that allowed students themselves to propose and vote on potential names.
In Santiago, Chile, four schools serving 4,500 students are uniting under the new Carlo Acutis Educational Network, while in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, a Catholic school created from the merger of several campuses has already made a pilgrimage from the United Kingdom to Rome in the hope of attending his canonization in April before it was rescheduled due to the death of Pope Francis.
Elsewhere, Catholic schools in Argentina, Mexico, Italy, and even a joint Catholic-Anglican academy in England have adopted his name. In Cheshire, England, the Blessed Carlo Acutis Catholic and Church of England Academy became the first joint-faith school to take on his patronage. In the Philippines, St. Peter the Apostle School has recently launched the Blessed Carlo Acutis Artificial Intelligence Immersive Learning Center.
Coming soon
Looking ahead, Edmonton Catholic Schools in Edmonton, Canada, is building a $51 million Carlo Acutis Catholic High School for 1,300 students, due to open in fall 2026.
Catholics in Houston’s Bay Area are fundraising $50 million for a new Catholic high school projected to welcome its first freshman class in 2027 with a mission to be “unapologetically Catholic” and “academically excellent.”
“Our auxiliary bishop, Bishop Italo Del’Oro, introduced us to Blessed Carlo after he read our mission statement where we emphasize being a school ‘centered on the Eucharist,’” Maria Jose Valladares, the vice president of the Houston school’s board of directors, told CNA.
As the canonization approaches, schools across the globe are preparing for a simple but significant update — changing their names. Uniforms, letterheads, and signage will all soon bear witness to the Church’s first computer-coding saint.
“There’s a lot of changes that will have to be made, but how exciting that we can call it St. Carlo Acutis Catholic Primary School,” Howard said.
At Carlo Acutis Catholic High School in Malawi, celebrations of Acutis’ canonization will kick off with a special Mass and culminate in the performance of a school play about the life of their patron saint. “Carlo Acutis is an inspiration to many people, especially the youth,” Matumba said.
“We are extremely excited for the upcoming canonization,” Valladares in Houston said. “We consider ourselves privileged to have a patron that our students will be able to directly relate to and emulate — from his love for his friends to his temperance with video games to his devotion to the Blessed Sacrament.”
