Pope Leo XIV on Sunday canonised Carlo Acutis, a 15-year-old London-born teenager who died in 2006, declaring him a saint in a Mass in St. Peter’s Square that drew tens of thousands of faithful and made Acutis the first saint identified with his generation in Britain. The Pope also canonised Pier Giorgio Frassati, an Italian layman and mountaineer noted for his charity to the poor.
The ceremony, held Sept. 7, 2025, saw crowds fill the square and streets around the Vatican, with hundreds of pilgrims camping overnight in tents and sleeping bags to secure places for the long-awaited event. The Vatican said 36 cardinals, about 270 bishops and hundreds of priests concelebrated the Mass; the Sistine Chapel Choir, directed by Marcos Pavan, led the music as large tapestries bearing images of the two new saints hung on the basilica facade.
Born May 3, 1991, to an Italian mother, Antonia Salzano, and a father described as half-English, half-Italian who worked in banking, Acutis grew up in Milan. He developed a reputation for kindness to bullied children and generosity to homeless people, reportedly bringing food and sleeping bags to those in need. He attended Mass daily and combined a deep personal faith with an early facility for computers, teaching himself coding and building websites to document reported miracles and the lives of saints—activities that earned him the nickname "God's Influencer."
A cancer diagnosis in October 2006 led to his death on Oct. 12, 2006. Friends and family have recounted his calm acceptance of his illness; he is reported to have written at age seven that "My life plan is to be always close to Jesus" and told his parents while ill, "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."
Canonisation followed the Vatican’s recognition of two miracles attributed to Acutis after his death, a required step in the Roman Catholic Church’s process for declaring sainthood. The first recognised miracle involved the recovery of a Brazilian child, Mattheus Vianna, who had a rare pancreatic malformation and whose condition improved after visiting Acutis’s tomb in Assisi in 2012. The second recognised miracle concerned a Costa Rican student, Valeria Valverde, who suffered a critical head injury in a cycling accident in 2014 and later regained consciousness and recovered following prayers at Acutis’s tomb; both recoveries were later examined and accepted by Vatican medical and theological experts.
Acetuis’s remains are displayed in Assisi, dressed in jeans and a pair of Nike trainers and housed in a glass-walled tomb that has become a focal point for pilgrims. The canonisation had been scheduled for April but was postponed after the death of Pope Francis earlier in the year. The event in Rome was also relayed to screens in Assisi, where many travelled by special train to join the celebrations.
Frassati, who died of polio in 1925 at age 24, was canonised alongside Acutis. An engineering student from Turin, Frassati gained a reputation for devoting his time and resources to the poor and sick of his city and for his love of mountain climbing; his coffin has long borne the inscription "Verso l'alto" ("To the heights"), a phrase associated with his life and letters. Frassati was beatified by John Paul II in 1990, and the Vatican recognised a second miracle attributed to him in 2024 involving the unexplained recovery of a young American man from a coma.
The canonisation Mass drew an international assembly of clergy and lay faithful, including Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella and the speaker of the lower house, Lorenzo Fontana. Relics of both new saints were displayed during the ceremony. Vatican officials and pilgrims noted the wide generational appeal of the two figures: Acutis for his engagement with digital media and youthful piety, and Frassati for his model of charitable action and youthful zeal.
Canonisation is the culmination of a lengthy and structured process that begins with local investigation, moves through recognition of a candidate’s heroic virtue and requires verification of miracles attributed to the candidate’s intercession after death. Final approval rests with the pope. In Acutis’s case, the Vatican’s recognition of two posthumous healings followed earlier steps in that process: he was declared "venerable" in 2018 and beatified in 2020.
The new saints are likely to increase pilgrimage to Assisi and sites associated with Frassati, and to feature in devotional material and online tributes, continuing a pattern in which the Church highlights figures believed to offer contemporary examples of holiness. The Vatican said the scale of attendance and the broad age range among those present reflected the resonance of both men’s lives with ordinary Catholics and Church leaders alike.
Pilgrims at the shrine in Assisi and in St. Peter’s Square purchased souvenirs and held banners and posters depicting Acutis as they paid respects. Officials at the Sanctuary of the Renunciation where Acutis’s body lies said hundreds of thousands visit the site annually. The canonisation adds Acutis and Frassati to the Church’s roster of saints, whom Catholics venerate as models of virtuous life and as intercessors in heaven.