Pope Leo XIV on Sunday canonised Carlo Acutis, the London-born teenager who died of leukaemia in 2006, in a ceremony at St. Peter’s Square watched by thousands of pilgrims who had camped overnight in tents and sleeping bags to secure places for the long-awaited event.
Acutis, a 15-year-old computer enthusiast who taught himself coding and used the internet to catalogue reported miracles and stories of saints, was formally raised to sainthood in a Mass that also declared Italian mountaineer and charity worker Pier Giorgio Frassati a saint. The Vatican and faithful have increasingly described Acutis as the first millennial saint.
The square was filled hours before the ceremony as devotees arrived from around the world, some travelling on a special train from Assisi, the Umbrian pilgrimage town where Acutis chose to be buried and where giant screens relayed the proceedings for those unable to enter the Vatican. Dozens of worshippers carried banners and images of the teen, who split his childhood between London and Milan and was known for his daily attendance at Mass, online work for his parish and kindness to bullied children and homeless people.
Born May 3, 1991, to an Italian mother and a father described as half-English and half-Italian, Acutis developed an intense devotion from an early age. His mother, Antonia Salzano, has said he had a "special relationship" with God. At seven, he wrote, "My life plan is to be always close to Jesus." He died on Oct. 12, 2006, after a short battle with acute leukaemia. According to accounts from his family and those who knew him, he told his parents during his illness: "I'm happy to die because I've lived my life without wasting even a minute of it doing things that wouldn't have pleased God."
Acutis built a reputation for using technology to promote Catholic devotion. He designed websites for his parish and later for a Vatican-affiliated academy, and curated an online catalogue of Eucharistic miracles and other devotional material. He has been popularly nicknamed "God's Influencer" and was known to wear jeans and Nike trainers; his remains lie in a glass-walled tomb in Assisi, where thousands visit each year.
The road to sainthood for Acutis followed the Vatican's formal procedures, which require recognition of two posthumous miracles attributed to the candidate's intercession. The first case accepted by the Church involved a Brazilian child, Mattheus Vianna, who in 2012 visited Acutis's tomb in Assisi while suffering a rare pancreatic malformation and later experienced what doctors described as a complete and unexplained recovery. The Vatican recognised that event as miraculous in 2020, paving the way for Acutis's beatification.
The second recognised miracle involved Valeria Valverde, a Costa Rican student who sustained a critical head injury in a 2022 cycling accident in Florence. Her mother travelled to Assisi and prayed at Acutis's tomb; Valverde later began breathing on her own and made a full recovery that the Vatican concluded could not be medically explained. Those approvals completed the canonical requirements for canonisation.
Acutis had been declared "venerable" in 2018 and was beatified in 2020. His canonisation had been scheduled earlier in the year but was postponed after the death of Pope Francis, with the final approval and ceremony taking place under Pope Leo XIV.
Also canonised on Sunday, Pier Giorgio Frassati is remembered for his mountaineering and his dedication to serving the poor and sick in early 20th-century Italy. Frassati, who died of polio in 1925 at age 24, was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1990. The Vatican recognised a second miracle attributed to him in 2024, enabling his elevation to the rank of saint.
The dual canonisations stressed different currents in contemporary Catholic devotion: a young technophile who sought to harness the internet for evangelisation and a young aristocrat who modelled direct charitable engagement with the marginalized. Pilgrims in Rome and Assisi said they were drawn by both examples, with many praising Acutis for making faith accessible to younger generations through digital means and Frassati for his lifelong commitment to the poor.
The ceremonies and surrounding pilgrimages have underscored Assisi's role as a spiritual destination and the Vatican's ongoing interest in presenting modern examples of holiness. Acutis's online legacy — his databases of alleged miracles and saints' lives — has inspired souvenir sales and devotional material in Assisi, where his tomb continues to be a focal point for visitors seeking to honour his memory.
Canonisation in the Catholic Church is the final step in a multistage process that includes thorough investigations of a candidate's life and the verification of miracles. Final approval rests with the pope. With Sunday’s declarations, Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati join the roll of saints venerated worldwide, their lives and the miracles attributed to them set to be commemorated liturgically and invoked by the faithful.
The Vatican said the Mass in St. Peter’s Square would be followed by local celebrations in Assisi, where many pilgrims who had not gained admission to the square gathered to watch the ceremony on large screens and to pay respects at the glass-walled tomb that houses Acutis’s remains.
The canonisations mark a rare instance in which two young figures from different eras were elevated together, each cited by church officials and pilgrims as a model for devotion adapted to the concerns of contemporary Catholics.