Carlos acutean Italian teenager who died in 2006 and who dedicated much of his short life to spreading the Catholic faith on the Internet, will become Sunday in the First millennial declared holy.
During the celebration that will take place from 10h local in the Plaza de San Pedro del Vaticano, Pope Leo XIV will also canonize another very young deceased Italianthe student Pier fractured Giorgio (1901-1925), passionate about mountaineering, known for its social and spiritual commitment.
The elevation to Acutis’s altars, who died of leukemia in 2006 at age 15, should be held on April 27, but postponed for the death of Pope Francis.
“God’s influencer”
Acutis was very talented in computer science and created a digital exposure about Eucharistic miracles, which earned him the nickname of “influencer of God” or “cyber and.
Born in London in 1991 in a well -off and little practicing Italian family, he grew up in Milan and He showed a lot of religious fervor since an early age.
It was beatified in 2020 and The Vatican attributes two miracles that qualify it to be canonized: The healing of a Brazilian child with a rare malformation of the pancreas and that of a severely injured Costa Rican student in an accident.
In both cases, their families had invoked the adolescent to intercede.
In Assisi, where Acutis’s tomb attracts hundreds of thousands of pilgrims and curious every year, the diocese installed giant screens to follow the ceremony and charted a special train that will transport more than 800 people to Rome.
“I know that many will come, many will see it on television (…). And I’m sure Carlo thanks them,” said his mother, Antonia Salzano.
“All of us are called to be saints (…), each one is special,” he added in a video published on Saturday for the Diocese of Assisi.
With about one million visitors in 2024, that diocese records the continuous rise in the assistance to the Sanctuary of the dispossession where the body of the teenage of rolly face and jet black hair rests in jeans, nike tennis and jogging garments.
“Process” very fast
As is traditional, a great image of the young man, dressed in a red pole and backpack on the back, was displayed on the facade of the Basilica Vatican of San Pedro, an image different from that of traditional saints
“Today more than ever we need positive examples, exemplary life stories,” The Bishop of Assisi said Monsignor Domenico Sorrentino, in a statement on Friday.
Canonization, which follows beatification, is the result of a long and meticulous process and can only be approved by the Pope.
Requires three conditions: having died at least five years ago, an exemplary Christian existence and having made at least two miraclesone of them after beatification.
This decision is the subject of a “process”, an investigation instructed in the Vatican by the Dicas supplies for the causes of the saints, in which specialists as doctors and theologians are responsible for evaluating whether there were miracles, which are usually cures without a scientific explanation.
The canonization process of the young Carlo Acutis was very fast, something unusual.
Pier fractured Giorgio
Instead, Pier Giorgio Frassati, who will be canonized with him this Sunday, died 100 years ago.
He was born in Turin in a bourgeois family and broke with the trajectory of his father, senator and founder of the newspaper La Stampa, to get at the service of the poor and sick of his city.
This engineering student, athlete, member of the Catholic Action, He summed up his ideal with the motto “Verso l’A high”, always towards the top in Spanish.
He died at age 24 because of polyomyelitis, he was erected by the Catholic Church as a charity model.
More than 30 years after his beatification by John Paul II in 1990, the Vatican recognized a second miracle in the late 2024: the inexplicable healing of a young American in a coma.
This canonization ceremony, the first for Pope Leo XIV since his election in May, takes place in full Jubileo, the “Holy Year” of the Catholic Church, for which more than 24 million people have already attended Rome, according to the Vatican.
