A new patron saint of the internet?

Modern Relics is a newsletter about religion, the internet and pop culture.

This edition marks three years of Modern Relics! I'm going to do a little check-in on the project halfway through this edition, and then, send it to me Rachel.

While looking through the Relics subscriber list I've realised that a handful of long-term subscribers unsubscribed in the move to Ghost, potentially without them realising. If you know someone you think might already be subscribed, be like hey did you read the latest Modern Relics? They might thank you!

Carlo Acutis will be canonised we have our patron saint!!!

Long-time readers of Modern Relics will know I've been keeping an eye on the cause for canonisation of Blessed Carlo Acutis, an Italian 15-year-old who loved to code.

This week the Vatican attributed a second miracle to the intercession of Acutis clearing the way for his canonisation. Assuming it goes ahead, he'll be the first millennial saint and also the first gamer saint and also likely a patron saint of the internet. At the very least, I'm gonna claim him as patron saint of this newsletter.

In my opinion that would be good because right now the only patron saint of the internet is St Isidore of Seville, who was the archbishop of Seville and died in the year 636. Sure, he was a scholar and compiled a sort of proto-encyclopaedia Etymologiae, but c'mon.

Born in 1991, Carlo Acutis learned how to code from an early age and made websites cataloguing reported eucharistic miracles and Marian apparitions around the world. He was deeply engaged in charitable work and undertook several pilgrimages. He died of leukaemia in 2006 at the age of 15.

It's unusual for a saint to be canonised this quickly – it usually takes decades, if not centuries – but his cause has been fast-tracked because he's an undeniably popular (soon to be) saint. He has shrines in Italy and the UK. He's already being depicted in stained glass in Italy and the USA. He features in a comic book called Digital Disciple.

I remember when Carlo Acutis was beatified (a step toward canonisation) a lot of trads got mad because his icons feature "worldly" attributes, like backpacks and laptops. When his body was exhumed for veneration, his was dressed in a track suit and Nikes.

I've written before about how if made a saint, Carlo Acutis' Playstation controller will become a secondary relic. Probably more interesting though, is that his eucharistic miracles website is still online, making it something like a digital relic that you can actually visit.

Young Sheldon has not converted to Islam

On the death of the Iranian President

A bit of context. A bit more.

Three years of Modern Relics

A few days ago it was the three year anniversary of Modern Relics. Three years! In last year's anniversary post, I wrote how I doubled my readers from 172 to 361. The numbers this year... are not as good lol.

As of today, Modern Relics has 405 subscribers – an increase of 44. I'd show you on a graph, but Ghost doesn't do fancy graphics like Substack used to.

There are a few reasons: Moving to Ghost caused a lot of subscriber churn and I lost about 30 subs. Some of these people never read the newsletter anyway, but others were regular, enthusiastic readers who I think were automatically unsubscribed because the Relics email address suddenly changed. Many of these folks had .edu email addresses or custom domains, so I think I just got snagged in several spam filters.

An upside of this is that my open rate has jumped a little -- from a little under 50% to about 56%. I'll take it!

Another reason for stagnant growth is I no longer benefit from Substack's recommendation engine. This isn't a huge deal because a lot of that traffic had dried up by the time I made the move anyway, but it's a factor.

Lastly, the internet just isn't as vibrant as it was 12 months ago. Twitter has broken and balkanised, making trends and memes harder to identify and content harder to promote. TikTok and Instagram don't seem to drive traffic (not that I post content on TikTok anyway). As it happens, Ryan Broderick just did an analytics post over on Garbage Day, and he also experienced a slump over the last 12 months. I guess this is just how things are at the moment.

Also, I just haven't been posting as much! In the last 12 months I have written 38 editions (in year two, it was 45). That's still plenty of editions, so that's ok.

Each year I make an assessment: Do I keep writing, even though Modern Relics remains small? For now, the answer is yes. Partly because it's a good exercise, and partly because there's enough people who find value in this that it encourages me to keep going. I won't promise this is a weekly newsletter anymore, because I can't quite keep up that pace, but I'll be writing Modern Relics for a little while yet.

Thanks so much for reading.

The ultimate Pascal's Wager chart

Where will you go when you die, according to everyone who has an opinion about that? Consult the chart.

Remember Eurovision?

Doing sins with Veggietales

Send it to me Rachel

This 2022 video of a woman pranking her mother by pretending that Jesus was seen in Ohio has gone viral in my corner of the internet in the last few weeks. The audio of the original video has inspired frantic lipsyncs in public places

Later, Melbourne creator Mike's Mic thought it would sound pretty good in Pretty Fly For A White Guy. Jacob Sutherland confirmed by making it real.

Even drag celebrity Trixie Mattel has been posting about send it to me Rachel, but what does the mother from the video think? She loves it and has been making Cameos to make some extra money and continues to be the star of Rachel's TikTok account.

Thanks for reading. I'm going to California on a few weeks of leave, so I'll probably see you after that. Until next time!