'God's Influencer,' 15, Set to Become First Millennial Saint After Pope Francis Recognizes Second Miracle

A teenager who died at the age of 15 is set to become the first millennium saint.

On Thursday, May 23, Pope Francis met with Marcello Semerara, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and attributed the second miracle to the late Carlo Acutis, according to Vatican News.

Acutis — who has been called “God’s influence” — was born in London, England on May 3, 1991, and died of leukemia on October 12, 2006 in Monza, Italy.

His body currently lies exposed in an open grave in Assisi, Italy, where the teenager is dressed in his favorite outfit of jeans and black Nike trainers.

If canonised, Acutis will become the first person born in the early 1980s to the late 1990s to become a saint, the BBC reported – although the source added that it was not yet known when that might happen.

Pope Francis has already beatified Acutis in 2020. This process is a recognition recognized by the Catholic Church for the deceased person’s entry into heaven and their ability to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray on their behalf.

A tapestry with a portrait of Carlo Akutis hangs in the Basilica of St. Francis during his beatification ceremony on October 10, 2020, in Assisi, Italy.

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The late teenager — who was a web designer and documented Eucharistic miracles — was credited with his first miracle for healing a young Brazilian boy from pancreatic annulus, a rare congenital disease, according to an online Catholic news site Alethea.

According to Vatican News, the second miracle concerns a woman named Liliana from Costa Rica whose daughter Valeria suffered severe head trauma and numerous other injuries after falling from a bicycle in Florence, where she was a student, on July 2, 2022.

The website said doctors said she had little chance of survival before Liliana’s secretary began praying to Acutis. On July 8 of that year, Liliana traveled to Acutis’ tomb in Assisi and that same day her daughter began to “breathe spontaneously.”

Carlo Acutis.

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After she partially regained her speech and began to move again, the scan showed that her bleeding had stopped on July 18. By September 2, Valeria was able to make a pilgrimage to Acutis’ tomb with her mother to thank him.

“Many Catholics around the world are overjoyed at the news that Carlo Acutis will be canonized,” Courtney Mares, author of 2023. Blessed Carlo Acutis: Saint in tennis shoessaid Fox News Digital.

“Carlo will become the first millennium saint in the Catholic Church. The Italian computer programming teenager is loved by many for his joyful witness to holiness in our digital age,” Mares added to the newspaper.

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People attend the beatification ceremony of Carlo Acutis at the Basilica of St. Francis on October 10, 2020 in Assisi, Italy.

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Akutis’s tomb is located in Assisi’s Sanctuary of the Robbery. “For the first time in history, we will see a saint dressed in jeans, tennis shoes and a sweater,” the rector said, according to the website of the parish church of Little Flowers. “This is a great message for us, we cannot feel holiness as a distant thing, but as something that is available to everyone because the Lord is the Lord of all.”

Archbishop Domenico Sorrentino of Assisi added, according to the media outlet, which Acutis linked to on his site, “Carlo is a boy of our time. The boy of the internet age and the model of sanctity of the digital age.”

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education