There aren’t many saints in the Catholic Church who we’ve seen pictures or artworks of wearing jeans and sneakers. Carlo Acutis could very well be the first. Born in 1991, Carlo will be the first millennial to be recognised as a saint in the Catholic Church.
At the age of 7, Carlo told his mum “To always be united with Jesus: This is my life plan.” He attended Mass daily and preached to many – his own family, his au pair, classmates and teachers, and the less fortunate. He was a tech-savvy kid and used his skills to create a website documenting miracles from around the world. Carlo himself called the Eucharist his “Highway to heaven”.
There is a particular criteria for one to be deemed a saint, which you can read in this blog. The last step before canonisation is being recognised as responsible for the occurrence of a posthumous miracle. The first miracle attributed to Carlo involved the healing of Mattheus Vianna, in February of 2014, who was born with a serious birth defect to his pancreas that caused him the inability to keep down his food. It is reported that he was cured after touching a relic of Carlo in Brazil. The second miracle attributed to Carlo’s intercession was in May of 2022. Valeria Valverde had a critical head injury after a bicycle accident and was near death. Less than a week after her accident, her mother went on a pilgrimage to Assisi and left a written note at the tomb of Blessed Carlo during her time of prayer. This same day, Valeria began to breathe on her own and was recovering her strength and speech. She underwent further tests which showed that the hemorrhagic right temporal cortical contusion in her brain was entirely gone.
As a result of this second miracle, on the 23rd of May 2024, Pope Francis cleared the way for Carlo to become the first millennial to be canonised in the Catholic Church. It is yet to be determined when his canonisation will take place, however it could be possible for this to happen during the Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year.
“His testimony indicated to the young people of today that true happiness is found when God is put in the first place, serving Him in the brothers, especially the last ones. Let’s applaud the young blessed millennial!” – Pope Francis
