St Callistus, A Slave who became Pope, Saint and Martyred For Being Christian, A Young Computer whiz, Carlo Acutis turned Saint and A Martyred Christian in Charlie Kirk

Updated October 14, 2025

October 14 is Feast Day of Saint Pope Callistus I, Feast Day of Saint Carlo Acutis and a Day of Remembrace for Charlie Kirk.

Saint Callistus lived during the reigns of the Roman emperors Elagabalus and Alexander Severus. Eusebius and the Liberian catalogue list his episcopate as having lasted five years (217–222


Carlo Acutis was self-taught computer whiz, defender of bullied students, soccer enthusiast, and deeply devoted to the Eucharis, all this in a life cut short by leukemia at the age of 15.


While every day, Charlie devoted himself to a set of simple causes: Defending the truth, encouraging debate, and spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Callixtus  I's contemporaries and enemies include Tertullian and Hippolytus of Rome, the author of Philosophumena, writes that denounced as a Christian, Callixtus was sentenced to work in the mines of Sardinia. He was released with other Christians at the request of Hyacinthus, a eunuch presbyter, who represented Marcia, the favorite mistress of Emperor Commodus. At this time his health was so weakened that his fellow Christians sent him to Antium to recuperate and he was given a pension by Pope Victor I.

In 199, Callixtus was ordained a deacon by Pope Zephyrinus and appointed superintendent of the Christian cemetery on the Appian Way. That place, which is to this day called the Catacombs of St. Callixtus, became the burial-ground of many popes and was the first land property owned by the Church.

In 217, when Callixtus followed Zephyrinus as Bishop of Rome, he started to admit into the Church converts from sects or schisms who had not done penance. He fought with success the heretics, and established the practice of absolution of all sins, including adultery and murder. Hippolytus found Callixtus's policy of extending forgiveness of sins to cover sexual transgressions shockingly lax and denounced him for allowing believers to regularize liaisons with their own slaves by recognizing them as valid marriages..As a consequence also of doctrinal differences, Hippolytus was elected as a rival bishop of Rome, the first antipope.

Prayer to Saint Callistus

O God, who raised up Pope Saint Callistus the First to serve the Church and attend devoutly to Christ's faithful departed, strengthen us, we pray, by his witness to the faith, so that, rescued from the slavery of corruption, we may merit an incorruptible inheritance. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.

Prayer to Saint Carlo Acutis 

O God our Father,
we thank you for giving us Carlo,
a model of life for young people,
and a message of love for all.
You made him fall in love with your son Jesus,making the Eucharist his “highway to heaven.”
You gave him Mary as a beloved mother,and you made him, through the Rosary, a cantor of her tenderness.

Receive his prayer for us.
Look above all upon the poor, whom he loved and assisted.
Grant me too, through his intercession, the grace
that I need (mention your intention).
Amen.

Prayer for Charlie Kirk

Dear Lord Jesus, our Heavenly Father, we thank you for sending us Charlie Kirk, a fierce defender of the truth, and assiduous sower of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

May we, like Charlie and those who go forth weeping, carrying sacks of seed, will return with cries of joy, carrying their bundled sheaves, be able to share in that joy and witness a hundred fold harvest. "The blood of the Christians is the seed of a new life." Tertullian

For You told us

".. about those who have fallen asleep, so that you may not grieve like the rest, who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose, so too will God, through Jesus, bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

Indeed, we tell you this, on the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will surely not precede those who have fallen asleep.

For the Lord himself, with a word of command, with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God, will come down from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Thus we shall always be with the Lord.

Therefore, console one another with these words". 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

You also told us to pray for our enemies and 

" that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone, for kings and for all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity.

This is good and pleasing to God our savior, who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth." -1 Tim 2

Receive this prayer for us. Look above all upon the people, whom he loved and assisted, even though they wished him ill.

Grant me too, through his intercession, the grace that I need to forgive those who hate us
Amen.