British teenager set to become first saint of the millennium

Cardinals, bishops, friars and priests attend the beatification ceremony of Carlo Acutis at the Basilica of Saint Francis on October 10, 2020, in Assisi, Italy. Credit – Vatican Swimming Pool—Getty Images

A A British-born teenager who died of leukemia at the age of 15 in 2006 should be recognized as the Catholic Church's first millennial saint, the Vatican announced Thursday.

Nicknamed “God’s Influencer,” Carlo Acutis was known for his computing prowess and his dissemination of Roman Catholic teachings online. Acutis was born in London in 1991, before his Italian parents Andrea Acutis and Antonia Salzano moved to Milan.

During his short life, Acutis learned to code, created a website to document miracles, and provided his technical services to local Catholic organizations. “Carlo was the light-hearted answer to the dark side of the web,” his mother Salzano told New York Times in 2020, when he was first beatified and put on the path to sainthood.

Her story “can be used to show how the Internet can be used for good, to spread good things,” her mother added.

Acutis, a regular attendee of daily Mass, first expressed an interest in going to church when he was a child, Salzano told the Italian newspaper. Corriere della Sera. Acutis carried out charitable activities for local citizens and supported his peers through hardships, his father added. After his death in 2006, the Diocese of Assisi asked the Vatican to recognize Acutis as a saint.

On Thursday, the Medical Council of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints – a unit that examines the validity of miracles for the Catholic Church – said it had investigated a second miracle linked to Acutis. Vatican News reported that a Costa Rican woman named Liliana prayed at the tomb of Acutis, in the Umbrian city of Assisi, on July 8, 2022, for her 21-year-old daughter, Valeria Valverde.

Valeria had suffered severe head trauma following a cycling accident a few days previously and had undergone an emergency craniotomy to reduce pressure on her brain.

The Vatican said the prayer invoked a miracle on the day that saw Valeria breathe on her own, as well as regain some mobility and speech. The Vatican added that on July 18, CT scans showed that Valeria had stopped her bleeding and began to recover quickly. She was released from intensive care after 10 days.

This is what prompted Pope Francis to gather the cardinals for a meeting to discuss the sanctity of Acutis. The pope has canonized 912 people, but Acutis is believed to be the first individual born after 1926.

Acutis was previously credited with a 2020 miracle in which a child with a rare pancreatic disease made a full recovery after coming into contact with a T-shirt belonging to the late teenager.

Write to Armani Syed at [email protected].