Hundreds of thousands of faithful gathered in and around St. Peter’s Square on Sunday as Pope Leo XIV canonised Carlo Acutis, a London-born teenager credited with two posthumous miracles, alongside Italian layman Pier Giorgio Frassati.
Pilgrims began arriving overnight, many sleeping in tents and sleeping bags along the streets leading to the Vatican, while others queued in long lines to enter the square for the solemn Mass on Sept. 7, 2025. Large screens in Assisi and elsewhere relayed the ceremony for those who could not gain access to the Vatican.
Carlo Acutis, who died in 2006 at age 15 after a short battle with leukemia, was declared a saint after the Vatican recognised two miraculous healings attributed to his intercession. Born in London on May 3, 1991, to an Italian mother and a father with English and Italian roots, Acutis was raised in Milan and became known for his devotion, acts of charity and his early use of the internet to document and promote Catholic devotion.
The teenager, described by his mother Antonia Salzano as having a "special relationship" with God from an early age, taught himself basic coding and created a website that catalogued Eucharistic miracles and stories of saints. He was known locally for kindness to bullied children and for helping homeless people by bringing food and blankets. His final wish was to be buried in Assisi, the home of St. Francis, and his remains lie in a glass-walled tomb there dressed in jeans and Nike trainers, a tomb visited by large numbers of pilgrims each year.
Acutis’s cause advanced through the Vatican’s multistage process for sainthood. He was declared venerable in 2018 and beatified in 2020 after the Vatican accepted the first miracle attributed to him: the reported complete and medically inexplicable recovery of a Brazilian boy, Mattheus Vianna, who had suffered from a rare pancreatic malformation. According to accounts presented to the Vatican, Mattheus visited Acutis’s tomb in 2012, touched a relic and soon afterwards was able to eat normally; medical documentation submitted to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints was judged to show an inexplicable healing.
A second miracle that the Vatican accepted involved Valeria Valverde, a Costa Rican student who sustained a critical head injury in a bicycling accident in Florence in 2022. Her family travelled to Assisi and prayed at Acutis’s tomb; after a period of severe injury she began to breathe on her own and made a recovery that was later judged by Vatican investigators to lack a scientific explanation. Those recognitions cleared the way for full canonisation, a decision formally confirmed by the pope.
During his illness in October 2006, Acutis reassured his parents about his outlook. He wrote at age seven, "My life plan is to be always close to Jesus," and later told his family, "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." He died on Oct. 12, 2006.
Also canonised on Sunday was Pier Giorgio Frassati, an Italian engineering student who died of polio in 1925 at age 24. Frassati, a noted mountaineer and activist for the poor, was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1990. The Vatican said a second miracle attributed to Frassati — the unexplained recovery of a young American man from a coma, recognised in 2024 — completed the requirements for canonisation.
The canonisation rites, presided over by Pope Leo XIV, followed customary Vatican protocol: a thorough investigation into the lives, virtues and alleged miracles associated with each candidate. In Catholic teaching, canonisation declares that the individuals are in heaven and worthy of universal veneration. The formal recognition rests with the pope after review by theologians, medical experts and cardinals.
Pilgrims who travelled from Assisi and other parts of Italy and abroad carried banners and portraits of Acutis and Frassati. Several groups made the journey on a special train organised from Assisi. Vendors in Assisi have sold souvenirs and mementos related to Acutis in recent months as devotion to the young blessed increased following his beatification.
Acutis’s use of digital tools and his youth had drawn particular attention during the cause, with supporters dubbing him "God's Influencer" for his early work documenting sacred stories online. Church officials and scholars have emphasised that the Vatican’s recognition of holiness rests on the candidate’s life of virtue and service rather than fame or technological prowess.
Canonisations are often occasions for renewed focus on the examples set by those recognised. Acutis and Frassati have been presented by church leaders as models for young Catholics — one for his use of modern media to spread faith and his care for the marginalized, the other for his energetic charity and spiritual commitment.
The ceremonies in St. Peter’s Square and the broadcasts to Assisi and other sites allowed the faithful who could not be inside the Vatican to participate in the Mass. Representatives from communities touched by the lives of both men attended, and clergy from across the world participated in the liturgy.
The Vatican’s announcement of the canonisations followed years of inquiry and documentation. As with all canonisations, the decisions were made after review of the candidates’ writings, testimony about their lives, and investigation of the alleged miracles, including medical records and expert opinions presented to Vatican officials.
The recognition of Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati as saints adds two new figures to the Catholic Church’s roster of saints and is expected to prompt continued interest and pilgrimage to sites associated with their lives, including Acutis’s tomb in Assisi and locations in Milan and Rome connected to both men.