Vatican City – In his vitriolic article targeting the figure and Eucharistic spirituality of Blessed Carlo Acutis, the self-styled “non-liturgist” Andrea Grillo launches a violent and erratic attack, driven more by personal repression and a need to rant than by any serious desire for theological dialogue. His words drip with sarcasm, contempt, and sweeping generalisations, culminating in a polemical crescendo that ultimately strikes not only at the young Blessed on his way to canonisation but at popular devotion itself and Catholic doctrine on the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Once again, many are asking how it is possible that Sant’Anselmo Pontifical University continues to pay a salary to a heretic who spews venom against those who fund him. It is therefore worth responding point by point, exposing the inconsistencies, prejudices, and simplifications riddling his text.
An “Old” Theology – or Simply a Catholic One?
Grillo wonders how it is possible that a young person today can communicate an “Eucharistic theology so old, heavy, obsessive.” But “old” compared to what? The latest tirade of the non-liturgists in the salons of Camaldoli, where repressed elders shout against those who defend “MALE-ONLY ORDINATION. HOW HORRIBLE”?
To the sensitivity of a pseudo-academic elite increasingly distant from the sensus fidei of the Christian people? Or perhaps to the living Tradition of the Church, which has always recognised the Real Presence of Christ—Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity—as the heart of the Eucharist?
It is curious that in scorning “old” theology, Grillo ends up disqualifying St Thomas Aquinas, the Council of Trent, and even the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
The Eucharistic devotion of Carlo Acutis is not a spiritual pathology, but the expression of a heart in love with Jesus truly present in the Eucharist.
And this is, ultimately, what disturbs Grillo: that an adolescent lived out with radical simplicity that Eucharistic faith which some strands of so-called “queer theology” have sidelined—if not deliberately dismantled.
Eucharistic Miracles: Distortion or Provocation to Faith?
Grillo dismisses Carlo’s interest in Eucharistic miracles with sarcasm, calling it a “distorted fixation” and accusing the exhibition’s introductory texts of “Eucharistic bad manners.” But the Church’s faith has never excluded Eucharistic miracles, nor has it ever regarded them as obstacles to sound doctrine. On the contrary, their pastoral, apologetic, and catechetical value has long been recognised. St John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and even the Catechism (cf. §§ 156, 1336) affirm that miracles—Eucharistic included—can help strengthen faith. Grillo, however, seems scandalised by a boy who took seriously the true miracle of the Eucharist: Christ alive and present under the species of bread and wine.
He does not ask how it is possible for a 14-year-old to speak of these mysteries with such enthusiasm; instead, he is outraged that he does so in a manner that does not conform to Grillo’s liturgical-ideological frameworks.
Let’s not forget we are dealing with people who are not Catholic, do not believe in Jesus Christ, yet pontificate from university halls, criticising everyone and everything. And Swiss Benedictines are footing the bill.
Grillo’s “True Miracle”
The climax of the article is Grillo’s juxtaposition of the “true miracle” – ecclesial unity – against so-called “false Eucharistic miracles”. Once again, he creates a false dichotomy, as though speaking of Eucharistic miracles negates the ecclesial value of the Eucharist.
But there is no such contradiction in the life of Carlo Acutis: his love for the Eucharist translated into love for the Church, frequent reception of the sacraments, charity toward the poor, and digital evangelisation.
He never reduced Mass to a spectacle; he simply wanted everyone to know about the awe-inspiring reality of Christ’s Presence, which is now mocked—even by ageing “boomers” targeting teenagers (even saintly ones) with their so-called “progressive” theories.
Who Are the Real Adolescents?
Grillo ends with a disturbing formula, describing the exhibition’s authors as “adults writing like adolescents,” accusing them of theological immaturity. But true infantilism lies in emptying the Eucharist of its mystery, reducing the liturgy to a performative assembly, being afraid of the supernatural, and retreating into sociological moralism. Infantilism is when an aged layman presumes to pontificate about everything and everyone, even attacking saints.
Carlo Acutis was not a theologian, but a witness. And like all true witnesses, he grasped what matters: “The Mass is the highway to Heaven.” A simple phrase, perhaps too simple for academic parlours, but disarmingly powerful. It is the power of faith.
Sant’Anselmo Funds Heresy
Grillo has published an article that is deeply polemical, clearly ideologically driven, and in many ways offensive—not only toward a Blessed of the Church, but toward millions of faithful who live their Eucharistic devotion with simplicity and depth.
His rhetoric reveals a deep discomfort with anything that escapes the control of a self-referential, ossified salon theology. His condescending tone and air of superiority evoke that class of “frustrated '68ers”—part boomer, part hypersensitive—who, desperate to distance themselves from the common faith of the people, would not hesitate to correct a child kneeling in adoration, perhaps with a snide quip like: “Are your hands joined or glued together?”
The goal is not clarification, but demolition.
Since the election of Pope Leo XIV, Andrea Grillo has turned his Facebook page into a sort of daily diary of invective, in the style of the most repressed boomers who cannot process the grief of a bygone era.
The famous “backwardists”, as Pope Francis might have called them. “So it was a grave sin to attack the Pope… That rule lasted from 13 March 2013 to 21 April 2025. Now it’s over,” commented a Curial archbishop with bitter irony. A stinging remark—but one that aptly captures the hypocrisy of certain circles: for twelve years, it was forbidden even to hint at criticism of the reigning Pope; now, anything goes, so long as the target is the new Pontiff.
Figures like Grillo do not sowdiscernment, but discord. Their aim is not to build, but to tear down. They are not seeking truth, but rather discredit anything that does not conform to their self-referential ideological frameworks. We’ve seen this before: the illusion of owning the theological and liturgical high ground, the arrogance of deciding who is “progressive” and who is “backward,” who qualifies as a theologian and who is dismissed as a “too popular” devotee. It is time, then, to ask serious questions of the Pontifical University of Sant’Anselmo, where Grillo teaches.
It is there that Abbot Primate Jeremias Schröder works—currently tasked with a visitation to Heiligenkreuz Abbey, a community where theology is not driven by ideology, and lay professors do not promote heterodox positions—like women’s ordination—with funding from wealthy Swiss abbeys.
At Sant’Anselmo, however, this is happening. So why not initiate a visitation there as well? Why not take a closer look at budgets, grants, and the projects truly being funded in the name of “reform” and “pastoral renewal”? Such an action would not only be an act of transparency, but of ecclesial justice.
d.M.I.
Silere non possum