Green High student builds St. Carlo Acutis shrine for Eagle Scout project at Queen of Heaven Church
Conor Edwards leads volunteers in creating prayer space honoring first millennial saint, completing months-long service project.
Pictured are 24 members of the work crew for the St. Carlo Acutis Shrine on the Queen of Heaven Church grounds. The project was led by Boy Scout Troop 334’s Conor Edwards as part of his effort to become an Eagle Scout.
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On Sept. 27, 2025, Queen of Heaven parishioner Conor Edwards, 17, began work on his Eagle Scout project alongside 24 members of Boy Scout Troop 334. A junior at Green High School, Edwards plays tennis, performs saxophone as a squad leader in the marching band, and is a member of the National Honor Society, Key Club, the Academy of Scholars and Scholar Athlete program. He also serves as a student liaison for the Green Schools Foundation.
Friends, family members and his grandfather, Denny Loudermilk, joined him at 8 a.m. to begin the project under his supervision. After discussions with Queen of Heaven Pastor and fellow Eagle Scout Rev. David R. Durkee, Edwards chose to build a shrine dedicated to St. Carlo Acutis, the first millennial saint. Troop 334 is chartered to Queen of Heaven Church.
The work crew installed a concrete walkway and extended it with landscape fabric and gravel. The new section, five feet wide and nine feet long, connects to the existing path leading from the pavilion past the Stations of the Cross and Angel Garden. Beyond the walkway, volunteers created a circular area 22 feet wide and 20 feet long, covered with gravel, and an adjoining triangular section bordered with pavers laid by Loudermilk. Three posts were set in this area to hold plaques.
Two smaller plaques display quotes from St. Carlo Acutis, such as “The more Eucharist we receive, the more we will become like Jesus” and “Our goal is to become saints, not to settle for a mediocre life.” The central icon plaque features Acutis’ image and the words, “The Eucharist is my highway to heaven.”
According to biographical information from Wikipedia, St. Carlo Acutis was a London-born Italian youth who created a website documenting Eucharistic miracles. He died of leukemia in 2006 at age 15 and was canonized by Pope Leo XIV on Sept. 7, 2025.
All materials for the project were funded by four parish families. The project required about 15 volunteer hours from Edwards, including planning, meetings, purchasing supplies and painting posts. Pastor Durkee contributed numerous hours of labor, including marking the layout, digging and planting seven clumps of ornamental grasses around the shrine.
On Oct. 14, Galehouse Farms delivered 11 six-to-seven-foot white pine trees, which Haymaker Tree and Landscape Service planted the next day as a free service to the church. The trees form a backdrop behind and around the shrine.
The project, from concept to completion, took about three months. A sign made by a company in Chagrin Falls now marks the shrine, reading: “St. Carlo Acutis Shrine, Patron of the Internet, The First Millennial Saint.”
The shrine is part of a master plan developed by Pastor Durkee, who has guided numerous Eagle Scout projects across the church’s 17-acre campus. “These projects were built for all to experience peace, joy and happiness on holy ground,” he said. “They provide a refuge, a quiet place to pray and feel comforted.”
