A relic of Carlo Acutis, the British-born young man recently declared a saint by Pope Leo XIV, was reported stolen from a parish in western Venezuela, church officials said.
Staff at the Santo Domingo de Guzmán parish in Cardenal Quintero municipality in Mérida state reported the disappearance on Tuesday of a small, circular piece of cloth that had been housed in a glass reliquary, parish and youth-group representatives said. Adrián García, coordinator of the San Carlo Acutis Youth Group, said the relic "has great spiritual value" and that "so far, there's no information; it's still missing." Police in Mérida opened an investigation, the parish added.
The parish said the cloth is a so-called "third-degree" relic, a category typically assigned to objects that have been touched by a saint. The disappearance came just two days after Pope Leo XIV canonized Acutis during an open-air Mass at St. Peter's Square, a ceremony attended by an estimated 80,000 people, the Vatican and press reports said.
Carlo Acutis, who died of leukemia in 2006 at age 15, was born May 3, 1991, in London and raised in Milan. He gained attention for using technology to promote Catholic devotion, compiling a multilingual website that documented Eucharistic miracles recognized by the church and earning the nickname "God's Influencer." The Vatican declared him "venerable" in 2018 and "blessed" in 2020 after a recovery in Brazil — described by the Vatican's sainthood office as a "scientifically inexplicable" healing of a child from a pancreatic deformation — was attributed to his intercession.
Relics of newly beatified or canonized figures are commonly distributed to churches and faith communities worldwide. The Venezuelan youth group said it had requested the relic when Acutis was declared blessed, a step in the sainthood process that often precedes wider distribution of materials associated with the person.
The Catholic Church has previously warned about the unauthorized online sale of relics associated with Acutis, a concern that church officials reiterated amid the current disappearance. Parish leaders in Mérida said they were cooperating with local authorities and appealed for information from the public, while expressing hope that the relic would be recovered.
Local police did not immediately provide additional details about the investigation or potential leads. Venezuelan authorities and church officials did not indicate whether security measures at the parish had been changed or whether other items had been taken.
The theft adds to broader concerns about the protection of religious artifacts and the illicit trade in devotional objects, issues that church officials and law enforcement in multiple countries have cited in recent years. For now, parishioners and the youth group said they remain focused on prayer and outreach as investigators seek to locate the missing relic.