Pope Leo XIV has declared a 15-year-old computer whiz the Catholic Church’s first millennial saint
Pope Leo XIV declared a 15-year-old computer whiz the Catholic Church’s first millennial saint Sunday, giving the next generation of Catholics a relatable role model who used technology to spread the faith and earn the nickname “God’s influencer.”
Leo canonized Carlo Acutis, who died in 2006, during an open-air Mass in St. Peter’s Square that was attended by tens of thousands of people, many of them millennials and couples with young children. During the first saint-making Mass of his pontificate, Leo also canonized another popular Italian figure who died young, Pier Giorgio Frassati.
The Vatican said 36 cardinals, 270 bishops and hundreds of priests had signed up to celebrate the Mass along with Leo in a sign of the saints’ enormous appeal to the hierarchy and ordinary faithful alike.
Both ceremonies had been scheduled for earlier this year, but were postponed following Pope Francis’ death in April. Francis had fervently pushed the sainthood case forward, convinced that the church needed someone like him to attract young Catholics to the faith while addressing the promises and perils of the digital age.
A hour before the Mass, St. Peter’s Square was already full with pilgrims, many of them young millennial Italians who had found in Acutis a relatable role model.
