Carlo Acutis, otherwise known as “God’s influencer,” has been canonized by Pope Leo XIV in a ceremony held at St. Peter’s Square, Vatican City on September 7, making Acutis the Catholic Church’s “first millennial saint.”
Praised by the Vatican as a “witness of Christ for younger generations,” the late Italian computer programmer, then 14 years old, was known for creating a website in 2004 named “Miracoli Eucaristi” in order to document reports of Eucharistic miracles and Marian apparitions.
Prior to his death from leukemia in 2006 at the age of 15, his website was launched on October 4, 2006, exhibited at Rome’s Church of San Carlo Borromeo.
In the ceremonial mass held for the canonization of Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati, Pope Leo XIV highlighted how both saints heeded Christ’s command to “abandon [themselves] without hesitation” towards their respective calling.
“Even when illness struck them and cut short their young lives, not even this stopped them nor prevented them from loving, offering themselves to God, blessing him and praying to him for themselves and for everyone,” the Pope mentioned in his address.
The late Pope Francis had pushed for his canonization in 2019, citing a need for a role model for young Catholics especially amid digitalization.
“Carlo was well aware that the whole apparatus of communications, advertising and social networking can be used to lull us, to make us addicted to consumerism and buying the latest thing on the market. Yet he knew how to use the new communications technology to transmit the Gospel, to communicate values and beauty,” the late Pope shared.
Two miracles were attributed to Acutis, paving the way for his canonization. The first miracle took place in Brazil in 2013 when a four-year-old boy named Mattheus, born with a severe pancreatic condition that left him unable to eat solid food, was healed after his mother prayed to Carlo and Mattheus kissed one of Carlo’s relics. Shortly after, Mattheus was able to eat normally and recover fully.
In Costa Rica in 2022, the second miracle involved Valeria Valverde, a young woman who suffered from a brain hemorrhage following a bicycle accident. After her mother prayed at Acutis’ tomb in Assisi, Valverde quickly regained consciousness and mobility, with medical scans showing complete healing of the brain injury.
Acutis was beatified on October 10, 2020, at the Upper Church of the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, as presided over by Cardinal Agostino Vallini on behalf of Pope Francis.
Leticia Arráez, a communications researcher at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, attested that the recent focus on young, ordinary saints — who were neither martyrs nor mystics — aligns with the message of Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium, which teaches the “universal call to holiness.”
“Their canonization confirms that holiness is not an abstract ideal but can manifest itself in contemporary ways, close to the sensibilities of young people, in the present and now … through friendship, study, family, the challenges of today, and even through illness faced with Christian hope,” Arráez described.
Acutis’ relics are set to visit the Philippines from November 28 to December 15, according to the Friends of Blessed Carlo Acutis Philippines, as reported by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) News.
