Thousands of faithful lined St. Peter's Square on Sunday as Pope Leo XIV declared Carlo Acutis a saint, elevating the London-born teenager who used digital tools to document Catholic miracles and devotion. The canonisation, held in a solemn Mass at the Vatican, drew crowds that camped in tents and sleeping bags along the approach to the square and filled giant screens in Assisi, the town where Acutis is buried.
Acutis, born May 3, 1991, to an Italian mother and a half-English, half-Italian father, died of acute leukaemia at age 15 in October 2006. He has been widely described in media and among pilgrims as the first millennial saint and was popularly nicknamed "God's Influencer" for his early use of the internet to catalogue reported miracles and promote saints. Hundreds of devotees carried banners, posters and small statues depicting the teen as they gathered for the long‑awaited ceremony.
Clad in jeans and a pair of Nike trainers, Acutis's remains lie in a glass‑walled tomb in Assisi, a medieval pilgrimage site he chose as his final resting place. Pilgrims from around the world arrived in Rome on special trains from Assisi and other cities to attend the canonisation, which had been scheduled for April but was postponed after the death of Pope Francis, according to Vatican announcements.
The Vatican recognised two miracles attributed to Acutis since his death — a required step in the path to sainthood. The first involved a Brazilian boy, Mattheus Vianna, who in 2012 visited Acutis's tomb in Assisi and, after touching a relic, said he was cured of a rare pancreatic malformation that had left him unable to keep food down. Medical records and subsequent investigation led to a Vatican declaration in 2020 that the healing was inexplicable by current medical science.
The second recognised miracle concerned Valeria Valverde, a Costa Rican student who suffered a critical head injury in a 2022 cycling accident in Florence. After relatives prayed at Acutis's tomb, she began breathing unaided and later made a full recovery. The Vatican accepted the case as the second miracle attributed to Acutis, clearing the way for beatification and eventual canonisation.
Authorities said Acutis, who grew up in Milan, attended Mass daily and cared for parishioners and homeless people, bringing them food and sleeping bags. He taught himself computer coding as a child and used those skills to create a website that documented saints and reported miracles, work that later extended to a Vatican-based academy. Friends and family described him as kind to bullied children and attentive to those in need.
Acutis was declared "venerable" in 2018 and beatified in 2020. His mother, Antonia Salzano, has said her son had a special relationship with God from an early age; at seven he wrote, "My life plan is to be always close to Jesus." During his illness, Acutis reportedly 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." He died Oct. 12, 2006.
Canonisation in the Roman Catholic Church requires a thorough investigation of the candidate's life and alleged posthumous miracles, a process handled by Vatican congregations and medical and theological experts. Final approval rests with the pope, who affixed Acutis's sainthood during the Mass.
Sunday's ceremony also elevated Pier Giorgio Frassati, an Italian layman and mountaineer who died in 1925 at age 24 of polio, to sainthood. Frassati, known for his devotion to the poor and his love of the mountains, was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1990. The Vatican recognised a second miracle for Frassati in 2024 involving the unexplained healing of a young American man who had been in a coma.
Vatican officials and organisers said the simultaneous canonisations were intended to present contemporary and historical models of Christian holiness: a digitally fluent teenager from the late 20th century and an early 20th‑century activist known for charity and social engagement. Pilgrims in Rome and Assisi described the day as a culmination of years of devotion and a moment that connected parish life, personal piety and modern communication.
Souvenirs depicting Acutis have proliferated in Assisi, where his tomb is a frequent stop for visitors who come to pray and to view the glass reliquary. Devotees and church officials said his use of technology to spread the faith resonated particularly with younger Catholics. The Vatican said live transmissions allowed thousands who could not attend in person to follow the Mass from Assisi and other locations.
The canonisation drew international attention not only for Acutis's youth and digital legacy but for the crowds it attracted to the heart of the Catholic Church. Organisers and Vatican security officials managed large queues that formed hours before the ceremony, while local authorities monitored the flow of pilgrims and the operation of public screens in Assisi. The ceremony concludes a multi-decade process that began with local devotion and moved through the Vatican's formal procedures for recognising sanctity.
By the end of the day, Vatican officials reported that thousands had attended the Mass in person or watched through official broadcasts, and that Acutis would be venerated by the church as a saint. The new saint joins the calendar of the Roman Catholic Church and will be a figure of devotion for those who followed his life, his online work cataloguing miracles, and the two miracles the Vatican found to be attributable to his intercession.