Pope Leo XIV on Sunday formally canonised Carlo Acutis, a London-born teenager noted for using the internet to document Catholic miracles, and Italian mountaineer and social activist Pier Giorgio Frassati in a solemn Mass at St. Peter’s Square that drew hundreds of pilgrims to the Vatican.
St. Peter’s Square was crowded with faithful who arrived hours — and in some cases days — in advance, many sleeping in tents and on sleeping bags as they queued to enter for the long-awaited ceremony. Supporters carried banners and posters depicting Acutis, and many made the trip from Assisi on a special train organised for the occasion.
Carlo Acutis, born May 3, 1991, to an Italian mother and a father described in reports as a Kensington banker, died of acute leukaemia on Oct. 12, 2006, at age 15. He gained international attention for teaching himself computer coding, maintaining parish websites and creating an online catalogue of reported Eucharistic miracles and stories of saints. Supporters have called him a figure for younger Catholics, dubbing him among them a "God's Influencer." His remains are interred in a glass-walled tomb in Assisi, where he asked to be buried.
The Vatican said it had recognised two posthumous miracles attributed to Acutis, a necessary step in the canonisation process. The first, accepted in 2020, involved the reported healing of a Brazilian child, Mattheus Vianna, who had suffered from a rare pancreatic condition and whose recovery was attributed by his family to a visit to Acutis’s tomb in Assisi. The second recognised miracle concerned a Costa Rican student, Valeria Valverde, who recovered after a severe head injury in a bicycle accident in Florence; Pope Francis accepted that recovery as miraculous in 2022, advancing Acutis from beatification to sainthood.
Officials at the Vatican underscored that canonisation follows a lengthy investigation by theologians, medical experts and other specialists who assess whether alleged miracles meet the Church’s criteria. Acutis was declared "venerable" in 2018 and beatified in 2020.
At the Mass on Sunday, Pope Leo XIV presided over his first canonisation ceremony, which also included the elevation of Pier Giorgio Frassati, an Italian engineering student who died of polio in 1925 at age 24. Frassati was celebrated for his commitment to serve the poor and sick, his devotion to Catholic social teaching and his love of mountaineering. His casket bears the inscription "Verso l'alto" — "To the heights" — a phrase he famously wrote beneath a photograph taken of him looking toward a mountain summit.
The Vatican said the second miracle required for Frassati's canonisation was recognised in 2024, involving the unexplained recovery of a young American man who had been in a coma. Frassati was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1990.
Devotion to Acutis grew in part because of his youth and his use of contemporary tools to promote faith. Accounts from family and friends describe a boy who attended Mass daily in Milan, cared for bullied classmates and brought food and sleeping bags to homeless people. His mother, Antonia Salzano, has said her son had a "special relationship" with God from an early age even though the family was not particularly devout. Writings attributed to Acutis include the line, "My life plan is to be always close to Jesus." In his final illness, he is reported to have told his parents, "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’s online work included designing his parish’s website and later maintaining the site for a Vatican-based academy, using the skills he taught himself to document relics, miracles and stories of saints. His burial in casual clothing — jeans and Nike trainers — in Assisi drew attention and contributed to his image as a relatable figure for young Catholics.
Pilgrims in Rome joined others in Assisi, where giant screens relayed the ceremony to those gathered in the medieval pilgrimage city. The canonisation had been scheduled earlier in the year but was postponed, reports said, before being rescheduled for the September ceremony.
The twin canonisations prompted a global turnout from Catholics and other onlookers interested in the lives that the Church presented as models of holiness. The Vatican’s recognition of miracles in both cases follows established protocol, with final approval resting with the pope. The Mass and subsequent declarations add two names to the Catholic Church’s list of saints and mark a public moment of veneration for a teenager who combined digital fluency with religious devotion and for a young activist celebrated for charity and mountaineering.