Sopuruchi Onwuka

First Catholic Pope to come from the United States, Pope Leo XIV, has now become the first to canonize world’s first teenage cyber-evangelist, Carlo Acutis, who was outstanding with online content creation that promoted Catholic themed gospel.

At the Vatican City on Sunday, Pope Leo XIV declared the 15-year-old computer whiz the Catholic Church’s first millennial saint, transforming him into a model that might now inspire tech savvy Gen-Zees to become God’s online influencers.

In an open-air Mass at St. Peter’s Square, Pope Leo canonized Carlo Acutis who died in 2006 alongside another popular Italian who died young, Pier Giorgio Frassati; marking the simultaneous recognition of two young faithful as saints.

Pope Leo said both men created “masterpieces” out of their lives by dedicating them to God, and serve as “an invitation to all of us, especially young people, not to squander our lives, but to direct them upwards and make them masterpieces.”

He warned the crowd that “the greatest risk in life is to waste it outside of God’s plan.”

Over 80,000 of mainly millennials who gathered at the Vatican on Sunday witnessed Pope Leo XIV officially proclaim Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati two of the Church’s youngest saints.

Carlo Acutis who died of leukaemia in 2006 at the age of 15 was born on May 3, 1991, in London to a wealthy non committed Catholic family; but he raised in Milan where he showed increasingly intense religious devotion.

After developing keen interest in computer, Acutis boosted his capacity and became an online personality who built a multilingual website that detailed the Eucharistic miracles recognized by the church. He was known to spend hours in prayer before the Eucharist each day

Acutis is said to had limited himself to an hour of video games a week, prioritizing human relationships over virtual ones to the admiration of the Catholic hierarchy which cautions against the dangers of today’s tech-driven society.

Acutis was diagnosed with acute leukemia in October 2006, at age 15. He died within days, and was entombed in Assisi, which known for its association with another popular saint, St. Francis.

In the years since his death, young Catholics have flocked by the millions to Assisi, where they can see the young Acutis through a glass-sided tomb, dressed in jeans, Nike sneakers and a sweatshirt. He seems as if he’s sleeping, and questions have swirled about how his body was so well preserved, especially since parts of his heart have even toured the world as relics.

Italian Pier Giorgio Frassati, a mountaineering enthusiast who died of polio aged 24 in 1925 and was known for his social and spiritual commitment, was also made a saint on Sunday. Tapestries showing images of both young men were displayed on the facade of St. Peter’s Basilica.

Both saint-making ceremonies which had been postponed following Pope Francis’ death in April would be the first of such ceremony for US-born Pope Leo.

The Vatican has recognised Acutis as performing two miracles since his death — a necessary step on the path to sainthood. The first was the healing of a Brazilian child suffering from a rare pancreatic malformation, the second the recovery of a Costa Rican student seriously injured in an accident.

In both cases, relatives had prayed for help from the teenager, who was beatified in 2020 by Pope Francis.

The Vatican said 36 cardinals, 270 bishops and hundreds of priests had signed up to celebrate the Mass along with Pope Leo in a sign of the saints’ enormous appeal to the hierarchy and ordinary faithful alike.

An hour before the Mass, the square was already full with pilgrims, who stretched across the square in front of St Peter’s Basilica, many of them young people holding up flags from different countries or images of the canonized digital-saint.

Among the crowd Sunday was Eleanor Hauser, 15, on a school trip to Italy from the US state of North Carolina. She said she had been told about Acutis by her Catholic grandmother.

“It shows that you can do so much even when you’re young, you can make an impact on the world no matter how old you are,” she said.

Around 800 people had arrived on a special train from Assisi, where Acutis’ body, dressed in jeans and a pair of Nike trainers, lies in a glass-walled tomb. The mass was also being watched by the faithful on giant screens in Assisi, a medieval city and pilgrimage site in the central region of Umbria.

Acutis’s mother, Antonia Salzano, said that her son would thank all those coming to mark his elevation to sainthood. In a video published by the Assisi diocese on Saturday, she said her son was proof that “we are all called to be saints… everyone is special”.

Domenico Sorrentino, bishop of Assisi, called on young people on Friday to follow Acutis’s example, saying: “Today more than ever we need positive examples, exemplary life stories that can help our young people avoid following discouraging images, violent examples, and fleeting fads that leave nothing behind,” he said in a statement.