Late computer programming Italian teenager Carlo Acutis became the first millennial saint on Sunday.
Pope Leo XIV held Acutis’s canonization Mass on Sunday, making Acutis his first canonization during his pontificate. Acutis drew a fanbase of 80,000 to the Vatican.
“Sometimes we portray [saints] as great figures, forgetting that for them it all began when, while still young, they said ‘yes’ to God and gave themselves to him completely, keeping nothing for themselves,” Leo said in his homily.
Acutis was declared venerable by former Pope Francis in 2018, a recognition that he had lived a life of “heroic virtue.” At that point, Acutis had been entombed in Assisi for over 10 years. Assisi is known for its association with St. Francis de Assisi, from whom the late pope took his name.
Beatification, the next step in the process of sainthood, requires the pope to attribute a miracle to a person. Francis beatified Acutis in 2020 after reportedly healing a young Brazilian boy from a birth defect affecting his pancreas in 2013, seven years after Acutis died of leukemia at the age of 15.
Leo acknowledged Acutis’s immediate family, who were in attendance on Sunday.
“Carlo, for his part, encountered Jesus in his family, thanks to his parents, Andrea and Antonia — who are here today with his two siblings, Francesca and Michele — and then at school, and above all in the sacraments celebrated in the parish community,” Leo said.
“He grew up naturally integrating prayer, sport, study, and charity into his days as a child and young man,” Leo said.
Acutis was born in London in 1991 and was a talented computer programmer and graphic designer from a young age. Catholics renowned him after he created a website that cataloged over 150 Eucharistic miracles worldwide.
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As Leo addressed the crowd Sunday, he encouraged attendees “not to squander our lives, but to direct them upwards and make them masterpieces.”
“‘Not I, but God,’ as Carlo used to say,” Leo said.
