Pope Francis cleared the way Thursday for an Italian teenager who faithfully cataloged Catholic miracles online before dying in 2006 to become the first millennial saint.
The Vatican attributed a second miracle to Carlo Acutis, who succumbed to leukemia when he was just 15 years old.
Acutis — who was informally known as “God’s influencer” — was responsible for saving the life of a young Costa Rican woman well after his own death, the Vatican announced.
In July 2022, the woman named Valeria suffered severe head trauma after she had fallen from her bicycle in Florence, where she was attending a university, and required intense craniotomy surgery, but doctors had little faith she could recover.
Her desperate mother made the pilgrimage to Acutis’ tomb in Assisi, where his remains are on display, and prayed for her daughter’s recovery.
A week after the accident, Valeria suddenly began to move and partially regained her speech, with a CAT scan later showing that her hemorrhage had disappeared.
Her recovery was so quick that she and her mother made a trip back to Assisi the following month to thank him for stepping in.
The Pope and the head of the Vatican’s saint-making department, Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, ruled this week that the shocking recovery qualified as a miracle worthy of advancing Acutis to sainthood.
The attribution of a second miracle means he can now be elevated to sainthood, but the Vatican did not say when this would happen.
Canonization is a painstaking, and usually lengthy, four-step process: First, a candidate must be named a Servant of God; secondly, a life of “heroic virtue” must be proved; thirdly, after a verified miracle, the candidate is beatified and referred to as “Blessed.” Finally, after another miracle is confirmed, the candidate is canonized and considered a saint.
During his limited time on Earth, Acutis became known for launching a website that documented every reported Eucharistic miracle.
He also frequently ministered to the homeless and hungry in his native Milan.
Due to his “important role in evangelization through the internet,” Acutis was named as a patron of last year’s World Youth Day in Lisbon.
With Post wires
