Chasing Immortality 

In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Naveen Jain summed up his life’s goal: “I want to make aging optional.” The tech billionaire is one of a growing number of ultra-wealthy entrepreneurs chasing immortality, including famous innovators such as Sam Altman and Peter Thiel. The article reports: “Thiel’s quest for longer life spans nearly a dozen companies—some of which were funded by his venture firm and others by a nonprofit foundation he backed—that raised more than $700 million.” Over the past two decades, more than $5 billion have been invested in companies developing technologies and therapies that they believe could extend the average human lifespan to 150 years. I must confess, the idea of “hacking” our body chemistry with pills and protein cocktails so as to achieve a radical lengthening of life in this world does not excite me. Perhaps I suffer from a lack of imagination, but who wants to have to work until they’re 130? As a Catholic, however, I would argue that the Silicon Valley transhumanists, those hailed as the creative geniuses of our age, are the ones whose imaginations are truly impoverished. And I think most people are instinctively repelled by their chase for immortality. 

If that’s true, it might explain the remarkable popularity of St. Carlo Acutis, who was canonized last weekend by Pope Leo XIV. Acutis died in 2006 at the age of 15 from leukemia and has been hailed as the first “millennial saint.” Many are drawn to St. Carlo because he seems so familiar – a regular kid who was interested in video games and web design. But what really makes St. Carlo so compelling is that, despite being raised in a secular home, God gave him the gift of a sacramental imagination capable of perceiving through the material things of creation the greater reality of what lies beyond. Gazing at the Eucharist, St. Carlo knew he was gazing at God, the Source of eternal life that knows no bounds, that survives even death. This truth shaped his entire life; it changed the way he looked at everything and everyone. “Sadness,” he would say, “is looking at yourself; happiness is looking at God. Conversion is nothing more than shifting your gaze from below to above; a simple movement of the eyes is enough.”  This sacramental imagination, which he nourished with prayer, the sacraments, earnest study of the faith, and works of mercy, also preserved him from any fear of death. In the final days of his illness, he said to his mother: “Mom, don’t be afraid. Since Jesus became a man, death has become the passage towards life, and we don’t need to flee it. Let us prepare ourselves to experience something extraordinary in the eternal life.” 

St. Carlo Acutis’ sacramental imagination made him an extraordinarily normal, happy, and healthy human being. In the hearts of those who knew him it awakened a craving for the things of God. In comparison, one sees the inhumanity of the transhumanist chase for immortality apart from God. It is a scandal that so much is spent on so narrow a vision. The young saint would sometimes remark: “People are so concerned with the beauty of their bodies and do not care about the beauty of their souls.” The saints reveal we are made for more. 

posted 9/13/25