There are almost as many screen control apps as there are social media apps. You can buy a device that physically locks your phone and requires you to move to another room to unlock it. We scroll, we stream, and we worry about screen time. The lack of control creates jokes, but also a nagging sense that something isn’t right. We know that there is something more to be created in life. We know consuming isn’t the whole story of what we should be doing. Pope Leo XIV named it in Magnifica Humanitas: “What are we building?” The question was aimed at AI builders and technology experts, but it’s also aimed at each of us.
Carlo the Consumer
Many saints have consumed technology. We have a growing pipeline of individuals with open causes who watched TV, played video games, or scrolled the internet. St. Carlo Acutis is the first one to be canonized. He loved Spiderman, played Pokémon, watched shows. He was a normal kid who consumed media the way normal kids did at the time. He didn’t avoid technology; he lived in it. This is important because it’s easy to think about digital sobriety as total abstinence, but that’s not the model that St. Carlo gives us. Abstinence is also not what Pope Leo is calling us to.
Carlo the Builder
What sets Carlo apart, what brought him to canonization, was his willingness to build. He learned to code and built something for God. St. Carlo visited and researched numerous sites of Eucharistic miracles. He built out a database to track the various details: location, year, pictures, and more. Today, you can still visit the website and learn more about these miracles as told through St. Carlo’s work.
In the past, a print version of his catalog came to my archdiocese. Walking through the poster presentation of these Eucharistic miracles really drove home to me the magnitude of what St. Carlo accomplished. The amount of information about Eucharistic miracles is amazing. More importantly, he created something that continues to evangelize people around the world. He turned a hobby project into something built with heaven in mind. The question Pope Leo continues to pose to us—“What are we building?”—is one we can continuously discern in every aspect of our lives.
As Pope Leo writes, technological innovation can “represent human participation in the divine act of creation.” Carlo’s website wasn’t consumption; it was creation ordered toward God. The project required technical skills and screen time. When posed the question, “What are we building?”, St. Carlo would be able to answer that with clarity and purpose, a tool ordered toward God. His website cataloguing Eucharistic miracles not only brought him closer to Jesus but also the entire world.
The Distinction Matters for All of Us
Most of us default to consuming technology. We read articles, listen to podcasts, and scroll through Church-adjacent social media. These aren’t bad things. But St. Carlo and Pope Leo challenge us to ask: “What am I building?” It could be a strong faith-based community online or a meal train system for new moms. These are all needed.
Building also doesn’t always require a computer. Saints have long built schools, monasteries, and hospitals. Recently, I read a biography about St. Katherine Drexel who built multiple schools to educate former slaves and Native Americans. She built beautiful buildings, intent on glorifying God through every aspect of their education.
Today, building might look like cultivating a prayer ministry, writing a letter to a lonely parishioner, or dropping off cookies to a new neighbor. What all these things require is discernment of how to move from receiving to giving, passive to active. When an individual sees a need and realizes they have God-given talents to meet that need, the entire Church flourishes.
We can even reflect on this question in our own homes or work. How do we build toward the kingdom of God? Practices like prayer and reading Scripture ground us, bringing us closer to understanding what God calls us to. We set examples for those around us, whether it’s our family, coworkers, or others in our community. Being firm in our faith ensures we have the foundation to build. It gives us the confidence to say “yes” even if the ask seems too difficult or demanding.
Pope Leo is confident we can do this: “The Church will be able to bear credible witness to society that seeking the common good together, with shared responsibility and fraternity, is not a utopia, but a real possibility.” St. Carlo took this seriously and showed us what answering the question could look like. He took the tools available to him and asked how they could help him serve God and then he started building. So, again, the question today is: What are you building?
Photo by Michal Biernat on Unsplash
