‘God’s influencer’: Pope clears way for the first-ever millennial saint

Carlo Acutis was 15 when he died from leukemia in 2006, but did big things for Catholicism in his short time on Earth.

An Italian teenager so good at spreading the teachings of the Catholic church that he was dubbed “God’s influencer” is set to become the first millennial saint.

Carlo Acutis was 15 years old when he died from leukemia in 2006, but he did big things for Catholicism in his short time on earth, Pope Francis has decided.

His first attributed miracle, healing a Brazilian child of a congenital disease affecting his pancreas, was recognized by the Pope in 2020 and resulted in his beatification.

Now, the Pope has approved a second miracle, involving the healing of a university student in Italy from a brain bleed, which clears Acutis for canonization.

According to the Catholic News Agency, the 21-year-old girl from Costa Rica was studying in Florence in 2022 when she was in a bicycle accident that resulted in traumatic injury to her brain.

After a craniotomy, her family was told the girl’s situation was dire and her mother set out on a pilgrimage to Assisi to pray at the tomb of Acutis, where is body lies on display.

The mother left a note at the tomb and, 10 days later, the girl was discharged from intensive care. Further tests showed her brain had healed and she only needed one week of physical therapy. Two months later, the mother and daughter set out on a pilgrimage back to Acutis’ tomb in Assisi.

According to Reuters, Acutis grew up in Milan where he took care of his parish’s website and later of a Vatican-based academy.