Carlo Acutis, an Italian teenager who died in 2006 at the age of 15. It was known for spending hours in prayer every day
Known as “the influencer ‘of God”, Carlo Acutis, an analian teenager who died in 2006, at age 15, was canonized, this Sunday by Pope Leo XIV, becoming the first’ millennial ‘to be declared holy.
During a solemn mass, the Pope pronounced the Latin formula that confirms the canonization of Carlo Acutis and also of the student Pier Giorgio Frassati (1901-1925), which was received with strong applause in St. Peter’s Basilica.
The ceremony, held outdoors, was attended by thousands of faithful from around the world, especially young people who were carrying saints with the teenager’s image.
Also present was the Italian President, Sergio Mattarella and the parents and the two brothers of Carlo Acutis.
His mother, Antonia Salzano, was responsible for bringing the reliquary containing a fragment of her son’s heart to the altar.
São Carlos Acutis is the first saint of the so -called generation of ‘Millennial’ (born between 1981 and 1996).
He was born in London on May 3, 1991, where his father lived, but shortly thereafter, he moved with his family to Milan.
After receiving communion, at age 7, he began to devote himself to the Church, having described his faith with a sentence that later became famous among the devotees: “The Eucharist is my way to heaven.”
Acutis, who reads a voracious university books on programming, began working with a computer engineering student on the parish’s ‘website’, with whom he learned to draw and create ‘websites’ and fell in love with this activity.
He won the nickname of “” influencer ‘of God “thanks to his main technological legacy: a multilingual site that documenting so -called Eucharistic miracles recognized by the Church, a project that concluded at a time when the development of these” sites “was only from the dominance of professionals.
Acutis was known for spending hours in prayer every day. The Catholic hierarchy has been striving to promote the practice of Eucharistic worship because, according to polls, most Catholics do not believe that Christ is “present” in Eucharistic hosts, the moment of the Mass when the priest makes bread (the host) in the body of Christ.
In October 2006, he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia and, a few days later, died at 15 and 5 months of age on October 12, 2006.
His body has been preserved and exposed in the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, Italy, where he arises from ganga pants and Nike Tennis and is revered by faithful from around the world.
He was beatified on October 10, 2020 and on 23 May it was announced that the Pope had signed the decree for his canonization.
The congregation for the cause of the saints recognized as a miracle of its authorship the cure, considered inexplicable by experts, of a child born in Brazil in 2010 with a congenital malformation of the pancreas.
The second miracle that led to his canonization is related to a woman from Costa Rica who, in July 2022, pilgrimage to the tomb of Acutis in Assisi to pray for the healing of his daughter, who had suffered a serious head injury after falling from the bicycle.
The daughter, Valeria, a young student from Florence, suffered a head trauma and the doctors gave her very little hypotheses of survival, but on the day of her mother’s pilgrimage to Carlo’s tomb, the girl began to breathe alone.
During the first canonization mass of his pontificate, Pope Leo XIV also canonized another popular Italian figure who passed away young people, Pier Giorgio Frassati.
Both ceremonies were scheduled for early this year, but were postponed due to Pope Francis’ death in April.
Francisco fervently defended Carlo’s canonization, convinced that the church needed someone like him to attract young Catholics to faith, while addressing the promises and dangers of the digital age.
