A LONDON teenager dubbed “God’s influencer” who died of cancer aged 15 is set to be made the first millennial saint by Pope Francis.
Carlo Acutis has been qualified for canonisation after a second posthumous miracle was attributed to him since his death in 2006.
The former computer prodigy was renowned for helping to spread Roman Catholic teaching online and used his skills to create websites for Catholic organisations.
Born in London in 1991 before moving to Milan with his Italian parents as a child, Acutis would ask to visit churches they passed in Milan from the age of three.
His mum, Antonia Salzano, previously told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that her son would also donate his pocket money to poor people and take meals and sleeping bags to rough sleepers in the city.
Salzano added how Acutis would offer to support classmates whose parents were going through divorces and defend disabled peers when they were being bullied.
His mum described him as a normal teenager who liked playing video games, but one who also had “a special spiritual life and gifts on the internet.”
“When he contracted leukaemia at age 15, his faith helped him to see his suffering differently,” Brenden Thompson, the CEO of Catholic Voices. said.
At Carlo’s funeral, the church was “so flooded that many people had to remain outside,” his mother said.
Catholics from around the world then petitioned the Vatican, calling for the teen to be named a saint.
Almost two decades after dying of leukaemia, Acutis is now set to become the 913th person to be canonised by Pope Francis – and the first who was born after 1926.
Archbishop Domenico Sorrentino of Assisi said: “The Church in Assisi is in celebration. I plan to arrive in Assisi this evening to thank the Lord in a Eucharistic celebration.
“But as of now I join the faithful who are in the shrine for a prayer of praise.”
In Catholicism people can pray to deceased people who they believe to be in heaven to request they speak to God on their behalf, such as asking for a person to recover from an illness or injury.
If the person in question then appears to undergo an unexpected recovery, it can be classed as a miracle by the Vatican.
When two miracles are attributed to a deceased person, however, and approved by the pope, then they qualify for sainthood.
Acutis was put on the path towards sainthood when he was beatified in 2020.
Beatification is the declaration by the Pope that a dead person is in heaven yet has the ability to intervene in earthly affairs on behalf of those who pray in their name.
A priest had prayed to Acutis on behalf of a Brazilian boy who was suffering from a rare pancreatic disorder, only for the seven-year-old to miraculously recover after contact with one of Acutis’s T-shirts.
The Medical Council of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, the Catholic church’s dedicated unit for looking into the validity of miracles, have now investigated claims of a second miracle.
In 2022, a Costa Rican woman underwent an emergency craniotomy to reduce pressure on her brain following a bicycle accident in Florence.
The family of Valeria Valverde, 21, was told she was in a critical condition, it was reported, so her mother went to pray for her at the tomb of Acutis in the Umbrian town of Assisi six days later.
The church said that on the same day, Valverde began to breathe without a ventilator and recovered the use of her upper limbs and her speech.
She was discharged from intensive care just ten days later and scans showed that the contusion on her brain had disappeared, according to reports.
By Tom Malley
According to the Pew Research Centre, the Catholic Church recognises only around 10,000 saints.
The most recent of those is María Antonia de Paz y Figueroa, an Argentine Catholic religious sister born in 1730 who established the Daughters of the Divine Savior.
225 years after her death in 1799, she was canonised on February 11, 2024.
There would be no canonisations in 2023 but 2022 saw 12 people made saints.
They were:
