For 19 years, I’ve carried a weight that has nothing to do with grief.

My name is Antonia Salzano, and I’m the mother of Blessed Carlo Autis, the teenager who died of leukemia on October 12th, 2006 at just 15 years old, and who was beatified on October 10th, 2020 in Aisi.

What I’m about to share isn’t another story about Carlo’s devotion to the Eucharist or his digital cataloging of Eucharistic miracles.

This is about a 40-minute conversation that took place on the evening of August 12th, 2006, approximately 2 months before his death, when my son explained to me a theological truth so profound, so pastorally urgent, and so specifically relevant to the year 2026 that I’ve kept the complete details private until now.

Carlo told me a secret about purgatory that could liberate millions of souls during the upcoming Jubilee year, but only if Catholics worldwide understand three specific errors that invalidate most of the indulgences they believe they’re gaining.

I was 40 years old when Carlo died.

And in the 19 years since his death and subsequent beatatification, I’ve become someone I never imagined I would be.

Before Carlo’s illness, I was simply a mother living in Milan, married to Andrea Akutis, focused on raising our son in the Catholic faith he embraced with such extraordinary fervor from age seven onward.

I wasn’t a theologian.

I wasn’t a spiritual director.

I was just a woman who went to daily mass because my son’s devotion to the eukarist had gradually transformed my own spiritual life from lukewarm practice to genuine encounter.

But after Carlo’s death and especially after his beatification in 2020, my life changed completely.

Suddenly, I was being invited to conferences worldwide to speak about Carlo’s life.

Pilgrims would come to our home in Milan wanting to pray where Carlo had prayed.

Journalists would ask me questions about his mystical experiences, his relationship with Mary, his understanding of salvation and sin in heaven.

I’ve given hundreds of interviews, written books, participated in documentaries.

I’ve shared so much about Carlo’s spiritual life that sometimes I feel I’ve turned our family’s most intimate moments into public property.

And yet through all of this, I held back one conversation.

The most important conversation Carlo and I ever had about theology, the conversation that I now realize was not meant for the immediate years after his death, but for this precise moment in 2025 as the church prepares for the Jubilee year of 2026 that Pope Francis has convoked under the theme pilgrims of hope.

My daily routine now involves answering emails from people around the world who write to me about answered prayers through Carlo’s intercession, about conversions that occurred after reading about his life, about young people who discovered their vocations after learning about Carlo’s radical commitment to Christ.

I maintain Carlo’s website documenting eukaristic miracles.

I work with the postulator for his canonization cause, organizing documentation of miracles attributed to his intercession.

I travel frequently to give talks, always staying in simple accommodations because Carlo taught me that true wealth is measured in grace, not comfort.

But through all these activities, I’ve lived with a growing urgency, a sense that there was something specific I was supposed to do before the Jubilee year 2026, something Carlo had explicitly asked of me during that August evening in 2006, and that the time to fulfill that mission was approaching rapidly.

The crisis I’ve carried isn’t grief over Carlo’s death, though of course I miss him every single day.

The crisis is more complicated, more theologically fraught.

It’s the burden of knowing something that could transform millions of souls experience of purgatory and yet not being certain how or when to share it in a way that would be received correctly.

You see, when Carlo explained to me that evening what he had learned during Eucharistic adoration about the nature of purgatory and especially about how plenary indulgences actually work, he was giving me information that directly challenged the superficial understanding that most Catholics have about this doctrine.

And superficial understanding isn’t necessarily false understanding.

Everything Catholics typically believe about purgatory is technically orthodox.

But Carlo showed me that orthodox beliefs can still be pastorally inadequate if they focus only on the punitive dimension of temporal purification without grasping the profoundly merciful, hopeful, and especially relational dimension of purgatory as a state where souls who died in God’s grace are not being punished but healed.

Not experiencing divine vengeance but divine medicine.

Not suffering separation but undergoing preparation for the perfect union with God that their souls desire intensely but for which they are not yet completely ready.

The crisis deepened after Carlo’s beatification.

Suddenly I had a much larger platform.

Journalists would ask me, “What did Carlo teach you that you haven’t shared publicly?” And I would hesitate, knowing that I possessed this specific teaching about purgatory and indulgences, but uncertain whether the moment was right to share it fully.

I would give fragments.

I would mention that Carlo had deep insights about the communion of saints and the treasury of merit, but I held back the complete explanation.

The three specific secrets about plenary indulgences that most priests never explain because they require a level of theological sophistication beyond what is typically taught in basic seminary formation on intermediate esquetology.

There were nights when I would lie awake thinking, am I being a coward? Am I failing the mission Carlo gave me? But then I would remember his exact words.

When the time is right, especially before the jubilee that will come in about 20 years, you’ll know.

And he had been so specific about the timing, about the papal theme of hope or pilgrims, about the extraordinary opportunity that Jubilee would represent for liberating souls from purgatory if Catholics understood correctly how to gain plenary indulgences.

The internal struggle intensified in 2024 when Pope Francis officially announced the Jubilee year 2026 under the theme pilgrims of hope.

The moment I heard that announcement, I felt something shift in my spirit.

Carlo’s prediction from August 2006 was being fulfilled exactly.

a future pope he couldn’t have known would convoke a holy year approximately 20 years after our conversation with a theme directly related to hope offering expanded opportunities for plenary indulgences creating the perfect context for the teaching Carlo had asked me to share but even then I hesitated who was I to teach about indulgences I’m not a theologian I’m not a canonist I’m just a mother who happened to have a son who received extraordinary mystical graces.

What if I got the theological nuances wrong? What if I inadvertently led people into scrupulosity or false confidence? What if priests criticized me for overstepping my role as a lay woman? The connection to the supernatural in this story isn’t a sudden apparition or a dramatic miracle.

It’s something more subtle and in many ways more profound.

It’s the reality that my 15-year-old son, two months before his death from leukemia, possessed theological insight that went far beyond anything he could have learned from catechism classes or even from the theological books he read voraciously.

I remember exactly how that evening of August 12th, 2006 began.

Carlo had been diagnosed with leukemia only 2 weeks earlier on July 25th.

We had started aggressive chemotherapy treatment and the doctors had been honest with us that the prognosis was very serious.

But that particular Saturday evening, Carlo still had relatively good energy and especially extraordinary mental clarity.

We were sitting in our living room in Milan.

It was approximately 8:30 p.

m.

Late summer evening, still light outside.

Andrea was traveling for work.

It was just Carlo and me.

We had been discussing various spiritual topics when suddenly Carlo shifted the conversation in a way that felt different from our normal discussions about faith.

“Mama,” he said, and his tone made me put down the book I had been holding.

I need to teach you something very important about purgatory.

Something God showed me during Eucharistic adoration this week and something he specifically asked me to explain to you because you’re going to need to share it with others in the future, especially before the Jubilee year that will come in approximately 20 years.

I remember my confusion.

Jubilee year in 20 years.

Carlo had never mentioned anything about future ecclesiastical events before.

He nodded seriously.

Yes, there will be a special holy year convoked by a future pope.

I don’t know which pope exactly.

Around 2025 or 2026.

And that jubilee year will be an extraordinary opportunity to liberate souls from purgatory through plenary indulgences.

But most Catholics will waste that opportunity because they don’t understand the secret about how indulgences actually work.

I felt something shift in the atmosphere of our living room.

This wasn’t my teenage son speculating about theology.

This was something he had received, something he knew with certainty that came from a source beyond his own reasoning.

I had witnessed Carlo’s mystical experiences before.

his profound encounters during eucharistic adoration.

His intuitive knowledge about people’s spiritual states, his understanding of theological truths that seemed to come to him directly rather than through study.

But this felt different.

This felt like he was being given specific information to transmit, like he was functioning as a messenger.

“What secret?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

Carlo leaned forward, his dark eyes intense with the urgency of what he needed to communicate.

“Let me start with the basics to make sure you understand correctly,” he began.

And then for the next 40 minutes, he explained to me a teaching about purgatory, plenary indulgences, and the upcoming jubilee that would transform my understanding of mercy, hope, and the communion of saints.

The supernatural dimension of that conversation wasn’t just in the content of what Carlo taught me.

It was in the way he spoke.

He wasn’t searching for words or constructing arguments.

He was reporting what had he had seen, what had been shown to him.

Several times during that 40 minutes, he would pause and say, “God showed me this analogy.

” Or, “This is how our Lord explained it to me.

” Or, “The blessed mother helped me understand this aspect.

” He spoke with an authority that didn’t come from a 15-year-old’s confidence, but from genuine contact with divine truth.

In the days immediately following that conversation on August 12th, I found myself experiencing a series of small but significant confirmations that what Carlo had told me was not just theological speculation but genuine revelation.

The first confirmation came 3 days later on August 15th, the somnity of the assumption.

I went to mass at our parish church and the priest’s homaly was about the communion of saints and how Mary’s assumption body and soul into heaven demonstrates God’s power to transform and purify his creatures completely.

But then he said something that made me catch my breath.

He mentioned that while we celebrate Mary’s immediate glorification, we should remember that most souls require purification in purgatory.

and that the church’s teaching on indulgences represents God’s merciful desire to shorten that purification through the application of Christ’s infinite merits.

I had heard homalies about purgatory and indulgences before, of course.

But this time, with Carlo’s detailed explanation fresh in my mind, I heard the priest’s words differently.

I noticed what he didn’t say.

He explained that indulgences can be gained by fulfilling certain prescribed works while in a state of grace.

But he didn’t mention Carlo’s three secrets, the requirement of being completely free from all attachment to sin, not just free from mortal sin.

The optimal moment for gaining a plenary indulgence immediately after sacramental confession.

The limit of one plenary indulgence per day.

After mass, I approached the priest and asked him about these specific points.

He looked at me with kind but slightly confused eyes.

Well, yes, technically a plenary indulgence requires the absence of all attachment to sin, he said.

That’s in the theological manuals.

But we don’t usually emphasize that point because it might discourage people from trying to gain indulgences at all.

The important thing is that they’re in a state of grace and fulfill the prescribed conditions.

I realized in that moment exactly what Carlo had meant when he said most priests don’t explain the secret.

It wasn’t that they were teaching heresy.

It was that they were offering a simplified version that while technically orthodox missed the profound pastoral and spiritual reality of what indulgences actually require.

and accomplish.

The second confirmation came a week later when I was reading one of Carlo’s theology books.

He had an extensive collection for a 15-year-old.

I picked up a book about the treasury of merit and the communion of saints, a book Carlo had marked extensively with notes in the margins.

On the page discussing plenary indulgences, I found a note in Carlo’s handwriting.

Most people think they’re gaining plenary indulgences, but are actually only gaining partial indulgences because of residual attachments.

The church’s mercy is so great that even failed pleenary indulgences still have value as partial indulgences.

But imagine how many souls could be freed if people understood what truly complete freedom from attachment means.

I sat there holding that book, tears streaming down my face, realizing that Carlo had been thinking about this teaching long before our conversation on August 12th.

He had been preparing, studying, praying about it.

The conversation he had with me wasn’t spontaneous.

It was the culmination of months or perhaps years of contemplation and mystical insight.

The third confirmation was more subtle, but perhaps most powerful.

About 10 days after our conversation, I was praying the rosary at Carlo’s bedside while he slept, exhausted from chemotherapy.

Suddenly, I had an overwhelming sense of presence, not threatening, but profoundly loving.

And with that presence came a clear interior understanding.

What Carlo told you is true.

Guard it carefully.

Share it at the right time.

The jubilee he spoke of will come exactly as he described.

And when it does, this teaching will liberate multitudes.

I didn’t hear an audible voice.

It was more like a certainty implanted directly into my consciousness, accompanied by a piece so deep that all my questions about whether Carlo’s teaching was genuine revelation simply dissolved.

Carlo died on October 12th, 2006, exactly 2 months after our conversation about purgatory and indulgences.

His death was peaceful, surrounded by family, fully conscious until the end.

offering his suffering for the church and for young people.

His last coherent words were, “I’m happy to die because I’ve lived my life without wasting even a minute on things that don’t please God.

” In the weeks and months following his death, I began to experience what I can only describe as a supernatural urgency about the mission he had given me.

It wasn’t dramatic.

No visions, no loutions, no apparitions.

But there was a constant gentle pressure in my prayer life.

A recurring theme every time I went to Eucharistic adoration or prayed the rosary.

Remember what Carlo taught you about the Jubilee.

Prepare to share it when the time comes.

This urgency intensified during certain specific moments.

In 2013, when Pope Francis was elected, I felt a strong interior prompting.

This is the Pope who will convoke the Jubilee Carlos spoke about.

I had no rational reason to think this.

Pope Francis could have called a jubilee in 2016, in 2020, or not at all during his pontificate.

But the interior certainty persisted.

Then in 2016 during the Jubilee of Mercy that Pope Francis had indeed convoked, I attended a conference on divine mercy in Rome.

One of the speakers was a canonical expert on indulgences who gave a technical presentation about the conditions for gaining plenary indulgences during the Jubilee year.

I listened carefully, comparing his explanation to what Carlo had taught me.

The canonist was completely orthodox, completely accurate according to official church teaching.

But he presented the information in a way that confirmed exactly what Carlo had said.

He focused on the external conditions.

Crossing the holy door, going to confession, receiving communion, praying for the pope’s intentions without adequately explaining the interior disposition required, complete freedom from all attachment to sin.

After his presentation, I approached him privately and asked, “How many Catholics do you think actually gain plenary indulgences during a Jubilee year versus partial indulgences because they still have attachments to venial sin.

” He looked at me with surprise, clearly not expecting such a specific theological question from a middle-aged woman.

Then he said something I’ve never forgotten.

Honestly, maybe 5% actually gain the penary indulgence, maybe less.

The vast majority gain partial indulgences, which are still valuable, but not what they think they’re gaining.

But we don’t emphasize this publicly because we don’t want to discourage people from trying.

Why not teach them correctly so they could actually succeed? I asked, he sighed.

because it requires a level of spiritual maturity that most Catholics simply don’t have.

To be completely free from all attachment to sin, even venial sin.

That’s essentially the spiritual state of a saint.

We can’t expect ordinary Catholics to reach that level.

I felt a fire ignite in my chest.

But what if the problem isn’t that Catholics can’t reach that level, but that no one is teaching them how? What if by lowering our expectations, we’re actually preventing them from experiencing the full mercy God wants to give them? The canonist looked at me thoughtfully.

“That’s a beautiful thought,” he said.

“Perhaps you should write about it.

” Those words stayed with me.

Perhaps I should write about it, but not yet.

The time wasn’t right yet.

Carlo had said the Jubilee would come around 2025 or 2026, and it was only 2016.

I needed to wait, to prepare, to pray, to ensure that when I did share this teaching publicly, I would do it in a way that was faithful to what Carlo had received and pastorally helpful to the people of God.

The supernatural escalation continued through the years following Carlo’s beatatification in October 2020.

Suddenly, I had access to larger platforms, bigger audiences, more influential venues.

But every time I was tempted to share the complete teaching about the three secrets of plenary indulgences, I would feel an interior check, a sense of not yet.

It was frustrating.

I had the platform.

I had the audience.

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