The 'cyber apostle': Pope paves way for London-born Carlo Acutis to be the first millennial saint
Pope Francis is set to make a London teenager the first millennial saint, in his short life he spread the Catholic church's teachings online, leading him to be called 'God's influencer'. Sangeeta Kandola has more
The Pope has paved the way for a London born teenager, who died from leukemia, to become the first millennial saint.
Carlo Acutis died when he was 15 years old, and living in Italy, after spending much of his short life sharing the message of Christ on a website he created from scratch.
Carlo covered heaven and hell, angels and demons and aged 11, he investigated the Eucharistic Miracles and listed 160 of the events on his website, which were shared across 10,000 parishes around the world.
The young computer programmer's website is still visible today, in multiple languages.
His online prowess earned him the nickname the 'cyber apostle'. He managed the website of his parish and later that of a Vatican academy, NOS reports.
But after his death, in 2006, Acutis would go on to perform his own two miracles, meaning he has passed the threshold to become a saint.
After touching one of Acutis’s T-shirts a seven-year-old boy from Brazil made a miraculous recovery from a rare pancreatic disorder. A priest had also prayed to Acutis for the poorly boy, the Guardian reports.
The Pope later verified Acutis was the source of this miracle and he was put on the path to sainthood.
Carlo Acutis' beatification ceremony in 2020
In 2020 he was beatified - which is the official recognition that he lived a holy life in the Catholic Church and is usually the step before becoming a saint.
A procession walked through the streets of Assisi, Italy, and he was blessed and laid to rest in an open casket.
On July 8, 2022, a woman called Liliana, from Costa Rica, prayed at Carlo’s tomb in Assisi, as her daughter Valeria, was fighting for her life after falling off her bicycle in Florence, where she was attending university.
She had suffered severe head trauma - she needed had craniotomy surgery and the removal of the right occipital bone to reduce pressure on her brain.
Doctors said she had a very low chance of survival.
On the same day her mother prayed to Carlo, the hospital informed her that Valeria had started breathing again, the next day, she began to move and partially regain her speech.
On July 18, a CAT scan proved her hemorrhage had disappeared, and on August 11, Valeria was moved to rehabilitation therapy.
This has now been verified as Acutis' second miracle.
On Thursday, Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, who is in charge of who becomes a saint, met with Pope Francis who approved Acutis' assentation.
During his short life Acutis always put others before himself - he used his first savings to buy a sleeping bag for a homeless man he often saw on the way to Mass and would often help people who were struggling.
He also loved playing football, video games, and his family say he couldn't say "no" to Nutella or to ice cream.
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