London-born teenager becomes saint after miracle recognized by Pope

A London-born teenager is set to become the first millennial to be made a saint after Pope Francis credited him with a second miracle.

Carlo Acutis, who died of leukemia in 2006 at the age of 15, was beatified in 2020 after apparently curing a Brazilian boy, Mattheus Vianna, of a serious birth defect that left him unable to eat.

This miracle, which dates back to February 2014, allowed the boy to be “completely healed” after touching Carlo's relic and telling him to “stop vomiting”, said a priest and family friend of Mattheus .

The second miracle allowed a young girl from Costa Rica who was studying in Italy to be healed after suffering a head trauma.

She would have been healed by the boy after he was invoked by his mother, reports Avvenire, reports the daily newspaper of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI).

Pope Francis made the decision to attribute the second miracle to Carlo during a meeting with the head of the Vatican Department of Saints, Cardinal Marcello Semeraro.

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Carlo was informally known as “God's influencer” because he used his computer skills to spread the Catholic faith.

Born in London, Carlo grew up in Milan where he looked after his parish's website and later an academy based in the Vatican.

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The attribution of a second miracle means the boy can now be elevated to sainthood, but the Vatican has not said when this will happen.

The Roman Catholic Church teaches that only God performs miracles, but that saints believed to be with God in heaven intercede on behalf of those who pray to them.

Typically, miracles are the medically inexplicable healing of a person.

Because of his “important role in evangelization through the Internet,” Carlo was named sponsor of last year's World Youth Day in Lisbon, event organizers said.