Site Blessing Held for Future Camrose High School
Members of Elk Island Catholic Schools (EICS), our local school communities, and the local parish gathered in Camrose to celebrate the site blessing of the future Blessed Carlo Acutis Catholic High School.
We were honoured to have Fr. Jim Corrigan, the Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Edmonton, provide a homily and bless the site with the assistance of Fr. Kris Schmidt from St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church. Elder Donald Northwest from Maskwacis began the site blessing with a smudging ceremony.
Students from St. Patrick Catholic School sung a beautiful hymn, and students from Our Lady of Mount Pleasant shared their excitement about being part of the first class to graduate from the new high school in 2026.
Blessed Carlo Acutis is a contemporary spiritual model for young people. Before his passing in 2006 at the age of 15, he was devoted to computers and more so to the Eucharist through developing a website to catalog eucharistic miracles. Further, he showed courage in defending those of his peers who were marginalized or abused in school, and he faced the pain of leukemia with similar courage.
Our EICS Board of Trustees chose to name the school after Blessed Carlo Acutis in October 2022 upon reviewing feedback and suggestions from a survey that was previously sent to EICS staff, parents, and students, as well as St. Francis Xavier parishioners.
With construction set to begin this year on a site in the Valleyview subdivision in southwest Camrose, Blessed Carlo Acutis Catholic High School is scheduled to open by September 2025. The estimated cost of the new high school is approximately $23 million, and it is being designed for a capacity of 460 students. The 4,720-square-metre school will also include shared facilities with the City of Camrose.
