ITALIAN TEENAGER CARLO Acutis has become the Catholic Church’s first millennial saint following a canonisation Mass at the Vatican this morning.
He had been due to be canonised on 27 April during the Jubilee of Teenagers - part of the overall Jubilee Year of the Church –but this was postponed after Pope Francis’s death.
The late pope died on 21 April and was buried on 26 April.
A special Mass at the Vatican to mark a second day of mourning for Francis on 27 April – the day Acutis was due to be canonised – turned into a celebration of the soon-to-be-saint.
Some 200,000 people transformed the Mass of mourning into an impromptu celebration of Acutis, with a sea of teenagers wearing caps and t-shirts bearing his image.
The canonisation Mass began at 10am Rome time (9am Irish time) and will be re-played on RTÉ One and RTÉ Radio 1 Extra from 10.15am Irish time.
Pier Giorgio Frassati, an anti-fascist mountain-climber who died in 1925 aged just 24, was also made a saint today alongside Acutis.
Prior to the Canonisation Mass today, Pope Leo XIV, for whom this is his first such ceremony, offered a special welcome to young people who had come to Rome.
He also welcomed the families of Acutis and Frassati.
Who is Carlo Acutis?
Acutis died of leukemia in 2006 at the age of 15.
He died in Monza, Italy but was buried in Assisi, has been dubbed “the patron saint of the internet” and “God’s influencer”.
He was interested in computer science and made a website dedicated to Eucharistic miracles.
Acutis came from a wealthy family, though his parents were not particularly devout.
He was known for his outreach to the poor and homeless, bringing them food and sleeping bags.
He also attended Mass daily and had a reputation for kindness to bullied children and homeless people,
Many of the homeless people Acutis helped in his life ended up coming to the teenager’s funeral.
When Acutis was first declared ‘Blessed’ by the Church in 2020, Pope Francis remarked that it “demonstrated that holiness is attainable even in our modern world.”
Acutis’s miracles
When a miracle is attributed to someone after their death, they receive the title ‘Blessed’ by the Catholic Church.
A second posthumous miracle then needs to be attributed to this person in order for them to be considered for Sainthood.
In May 2024, Francis formally recognised a second posthumous miracle attributed to Acutis, paving the way for him to become a saint.
Francis formally recognised the first miracle attributed to Acutis in 2020 and this was the healing of a Brazilian child who was born with a pancreatic defect that made eating difficult.
This miracle is said to have occurred after the Brazilian child came into contact with one of Acutis’s t-shirts.
After the recognition of this first miracle, Acutis was beatified and received the title of ‘Blessed’ and began to be venerated by some within the Church.
The second miracle, formally recognised last May, involved the healing of a 21-year-old woman from Costa Rica named Valeria Valverde.
In 2022, she was involved in a bicycle accident and suffered a severe head injury while studying in Florence, Italy.
Valverde then had emergency surgery to reduce pressure on her brain, but her family were told that the situation was critical, and that Valverde may not survive.
Her mother is said to have gone on a pilgrimage to the tomb of Acutis in the Italian town of Assisi, where the teenager is buried in jeans, a tracksuit top, and Nike shoes.
‘A normal kid’: Who is Carlo Acutis, the millennial teenager about to become a saint?
According to the Church, on the same day that Valverde’s mother went to pray at the tomb of Acutis, Valverde began to breathe on her own and the following day she was able to move her arms and speak.
She was able to leave the intensive care unit ten days later and it is reported that Valverde has made a full recovery, needing only a week of physiotherapy after leaving hospital.
The Catholic Church defines a miracle as a “sign or wonder such as a healing, or control of nature, which can only be attributed to divine power”.
For something to be formally recognised by the Church as a miracle, two-thirds of a medical board consisting of at least six doctors are required to sign a statement affirming that the supposed miraculous event cannot be explained by natural causes.
The miraculous recovery must also be a complete, spontaneous, immediate healing from a documented medical condition.
Pier Giorgio Frassati
Often overlooked amid the interest in the first millennial saint is the canonisation of Frassati.
He was a mountaineering enthusiast who died in 1925 and was known for his social and spiritual commitment.
His coffin is inscribed with the words “Verso l’alto” (“To the heights”), a phrase he wrote on a photograph taken of him looking up to the summit while mountaineering.
An engineering student who made it his mission to serve the poor and sick of his city, he was held up by the Church as a model of charity after his death of polio aged 24.
He was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1990.
The Vatican recognised the necessary second miracle to put him on the path to sainthood in 2024, with the unexplained healing of a young American man in a coma.
Today’s canonisation ceremony will be Pope Leo XIV’s first since his election in May, when he became the first pontiff from the United States.
It falls during the Jubilee Year which has already drawn over 24 million people to Rome, according to the Vatican.