Pope Leo declared British-born teenager Carlo Acutis, who used technology to spread his belief in the Catholic Church, a saint today in his first canonisation ceremony
British teenager Carlo Acutis has been pronounced a saint by Pope Leo in a ceremony attended by thousands of worshippers.
Pope Leo declared “digital disciple” Acutis a saint today in his first canonisation ceremony, alongside another popular Italian, Pier Giorgio Frassati. The open-air Mass in St. Peter’s Square was attended by tens of thousands of people, many of them millennials and couples with young children. Both ceremonies had been scheduled for earlier this year but were postponed following the death in April of Pope Francis.
The Vatican said 36 cardinals, 270 bishops and hundreds of priests had signed up to celebrate the Mass along with Leo in a sign of the saints’ enormous appeal to the hierarchy and ordinary faithful alike.
The teen, who was born in London but grew up in Milan, was internationally famous among young Catholics, for being a relatable, modern-day role model, who used technology to spread the faith.
The 15-year-old learned to write internet code so he could spread his belief in the Catholic church.
He limited himself to an hour of video games a week, apparently deciding long before TikTok that human relationships were far more important than virtual ones.
While he enjoyed regular hobbies for his age — hiking, video games, and joking around with friends – he also taught catechism in a local parish and did outreach to the homeless.
At the age of 11, he began writing his online exhibit about more than 100 eucharistic miracles recognised by the church over many centuries, focused on the real presence of Christ that Catholics believe is in the consecrated bread and wine.
But aged 15 he became ill in October 2006, and ten days later, he died of acute leukaemia at a hospital in northern Italy. His body was later transferred to an Assisi cemetery as Carlo had asked, because of his devotion to the hometown medieval saint, St Francis.
Since his death, young Catholics have flocked by the millions to Assisi, where through a glass-sided tomb they can see the young Acutis, dressed in jeans, Nike trainers and a sweatshirt, his hands clasped around a Rosary.
Carlo was declared “blessed” in 2020 after the Vatican recognised a miraculous healing through Acutis’ intercession — a child in Brazil who recovered in a “scientifically inexplainable” manner.
Last year, the church paved his way to sainthood by attributing to him a second miracle — the complete healing of a Costa Rican student in Italy from major head trauma in a bicycle accident after her mother prayed at Acutis’ tomb.
Pope Francis had fervently willed the Acutis sainthood case forward, convinced that the church needed someone like him to attract young Catholics to church while addressing the promises and perils of the digital age.
“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,” Pope Francis wrote in a 2019 document.
“Yet he knew how to use the new communications technology to transmit the Gospel, to communicate values and beauty.”