What does an extraordinary life look like?
Since the release of its first season last year, “Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints” on Fox Nation has attempted to answer this question by dramatizing the lives of Catholic saints. In its second season, the producer Martin Scorsese and the show creator Matti Leshem have chosen to highlight some of the most influential and beloved of these holy people, including the Virgin Mary, St. Patrick and St. Peter.
Among these exceptional stories, one of the season’s standout episodes is about the recently canonized St. Carlo Acutis. By choosing to highlight Carlo, whose life was relatively short and simple in comparison with his fellow saints, the series offers an insightful—and perhaps counterintuitive—reflection on what it truly means to live an exceptional life.
The episode on St. Carlo Acutis releases on Sunday, Dec. 7, as the third installment of the show’s second season. Notably, the episode was directed by Martin Scorsese’s daughter, Francesca Scorsese. As a Gen-Z social media influencer herself, boasting more than 413 thousand followers on TikTok, Ms. Scorsese was an appropriate choice of director for an episode about “God’s influencer,” the patron saint of the internet.
The episode starts with Carlo as a child being tucked into bed by his nanny, a young Polish woman named Beata Anna Sperczyńska. We watch Carlo ask Beata—a devout Catholic—profound questions about her faith. There is no denying the intrigue prompted by this opening scene. What child, on Christmas Eve, laments his inability to attend the Christmas Vigil Mass with his parents?
Even after a time skip forward to the teenage Carlo, he still appears very young. Carlo is frequently pictured in a school uniform and spends much of his time on screen engaging in typical teenage behavior: going to school, playing sports, using his computer and spending plenty of time with friends.
Unsurprisingly, Carlo’s interest in technology is a recurring theme in the episode. He is frequently shown typing on his MacBook, making webpages for religious orders around his home city of Milan and even playing video games with his friends. In a conversation with Mr. Leshem and her father at a preview showing, Ms. Scorsese spoke about why she thinks Carlo’s affinity for the internet is so compelling, noting that social media “can be very dark,” which is what makes his choice to use it “for good and to inspire” such a hopeful example, especially for young people.
Carlo’s impact on other young people is at the heart of the episode. Though in many ways a normal teenager, Carlo stood apart for his devout commitment to God. While he is shown goofing around and playing games, the difference between Carlo and his peers repeatedly emerges through conversations about a “partying” culture his friends enjoy but he does not. In one memorable scene, he challenges a close friend who boasts about having sex with a classmate to think deeply about the motivations behind his choices as well as the effects they have on him and others.
Another touching scene features a conversation between Carlo and a female classmate who reaches out to him after her choice to have sex with a male classmate at a party left her feeling spirituality unsettled. She clearly feels safe with him, and his response shows why; he is kind and encouraging without being preachy or pushy.
As Ms. Scorsese pointed out, this quality is key to what made Carlo so different from other 15-year-old boys. Not only was he willing to have challenging conversations with peers about their desires and choices, but he did so without ever making them feel less-than for their shortcomings.“The whole thing about him was he didn’t judge,” she said, “And he really just listened. And he was there for his peers. And they loved him for who he was. And they weren’t forcing him into anything.”
This type of mutual respect, even when there was some absence of understanding, also defines Carlo’s relationship with family and clergy throughout the episode. Carlo experiences no great moment of conversion and apparently no challenges to his faith. Even in the midst of great sickness and suffering, Carlo’s trust in God seems resolute. But as Carlo practices his faith—makes his first Communion, prays the rosary for people on the news, visits the shrine of Sts. Francis and Clare in Assisi—we watch his loved ones observe him and begin to undergo their own transformations. There is a spiritual evolution in this episode, but it is not Carlo’s. It’s everybody else’s.
Ms. Scorsese identified the impact that filming this episode and exploring Carlo’s world had on her own spiritual life, especially when she went to see the body of Carlo on display in Assisi while filming. “I wasn’t expecting to be so emotional and almost a little upset and disturbed because it just looks like one of my friends just sleeping,” she said, “So that’s when I realized this is a real kid that we’re talking about, a real person who actually did these things and created these websites that you can still look up. They’re still there.”
As Mr. Scorsese noted in his conversation with his daughter and Mr. Lesham, the episode has a distinctly different feel from many of the other stories told in the series. Less focused on driving forward a complex plot, Ms. Scorsese instead focused her attention on getting the details right in order to create a reflective exploration of Carlo’s relationship with God and the great ripple effect his faith had on those around him.
The result is what Mr. Scorsese called a “meditative” feel that invites us to ponder how we too might be affected by the story of such a unique young person of our own time. Rather than simply watching Carlo’s story unfold, we accompany him alongside his friends or loved ones—being inspired, as they were, by witnessing a truly extraordinary life.
“Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints” is available to watch on Fox Nation.
Related
