Acutis to be canonised alongside Pier Giorgio Frassati as part of the Vatican’s Jubilee Year events in Rome.
Blessed Carlo Acutis will become the Catholic Church’s first “millennial saint” at a ceremony in the Vatican on 7 September, Pope Leo XIV confirmed on Friday.
The news comes after Acutis’ canonisation ceremony, orginally scheduled on 27 April, was postponed due to the death of Pope Francis.
The Vatican said that Acutis will be canonised alongside Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati (1901-25), an Italian Catholic activist who was beatified in 1990 by Pope John Paul II.
Acutis, who died at the age of 15, is known as “God’s influencer” for creating a website dedicated to Eucharistic miracles and for using his computer skills to spread the faith.
Born in London on 3 May 1991, Acutis grew up in the northern Italian city of Milan. He died in hospital, of leukemia, in nearby Monza on 12 October 2006.
In keeping with his dying wish, his body was transferred to the central Italian hilltop town of Assisi, reflecting his great devotion to St Francis.
Over the past year more than one million pilgrims have flocked to Assisi to venerate Acutis whose body – clad in jeans, a sweatshirt and sneakers – is displayed behind protective glass in the Sanctuary of the Renunciation, part of the Church of St Mary Major.
Acutis was beatified by Pope Francis on 10 October 2020 after a miracle was attributed to him when a Brazilian child diagnosed with a congenital disease was cured after his mother prayed for the intercession of the Italian teenager.
The beatification made Acutis the Catholic Church’s first “blessed” millennial – referring to a person born in the early 1980s to late 1990s.
A second miracle attributed to Acutis came in 2024, paving the way for his canonisation, when a 21-year-old university student from Costa Rica recovered after incurring a severe head injury in a bicycle accident while she was studying in Florence in 2022.
Despite her critical condition, the woman made a full recovery after her mother made a pilgrimage to Assisi and sought the intercession of Acutis.
Italian prosecutors recently opened an investigation into the illegal online sale of alleged relics of Blessed Carlo Acutis after the bishop of Assisi filed a formal complaint.
The Mass and canonisation of Blessed Carlo Acutis and Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati will be held in St Peter’s Square as part of the Vatican’s Jubilee Year calendar of events.
Photo credit: Adrian Tusar / Shutterstock.com.
