Carlo Acutis: Pope Francis approves sainthood for teenage ‘God’s influencer’

A teenager who died of leukaemia at age 15 is set to become the Catholic church’s first millennial saint after Pope Francis attributed a second miracle to the boy.

Known informally as ‘God’s influencer’, Carlo Acutis — who died in 2006 — rose to prominence using computer skills to spread the Catholic faith.

Born in London in 1991, Acutis grew up in Milan with his Italian parents, where he learned to code while at primary school and later used his skills to create websites for Catholic organisations.

He reportedly took care of his parish’s website, one of a Vatican-based academy, and created another that documented thousands of miracles around the world.

Acutis was first set on the path to sainthood in 2020 after Pope Francis approved a miracle attributed to him.

A seven-year-old Brazilian boy claimed to have recovered from a rare pancreatic disorder after coming into contact with one of Acutis’ t-shirts. A priest had also prayed to Acutis on the child’s behalf.

In a statement on Thursday, the Vatican said Pope Francis approved a second miracle attributed to Acutis after meeting with the head of the Vatican’s saint-making department Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, qualifying him for canonisation.

The Vatican did not say when this would happen.

The second miracle was proclaimed by a 21-year-old Costa Rican woman who suffered a critical head injury after a bicycle accident in Florence in 2022.

Valeria Valverde underwent emergency surgery to relieve pressure on her brain, but her family was told she could die at any moment, according to the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints.

Six days after the accident, Ms Valverde’s mother travelled to Acutis’ tomb in the Umbrian town of Assisi to pray for her daughter’s recovery. That same day the 21-year-old began to breathe without a ventilator and regained her speech and the use of her arms.

Ms Valverde was discharged from intensive care 10 days later and scans showed that her brain injury had disappeared, according to reports.

The Roman Catholic Church teaches that only God performs miracles, but teaches that people can pray to deceased people who they believe to be in Heaven to speak with God and ask for help — such as asking for a person to recover from an illness or injury.

A miracle is usually the medically inexplicable healing of a person. If two miracles are attributed to a deceased person and approved by the pope, they qualify for sainthood.

Pope Francis has canonised 912 people, and before Acutis qualified for sainthood, the most recent birth date was 1926.

Acutis’ mother Antonia Salzano told media outlets that as a toddler her son used to visit churches they passed in Milan and would donate his pocket money to poor people in the city.

He would also reportedly offer to support classmates whose parents were going through divorces, would defend his peers from bullying and would take meals and sleeping bags to homeless people in Milan.

Acutis was named as a patron of 2023’s World Youth Day in Lisbon, Portugal, due to his “important role in evangelisation through the internet”.