THE VATICAN HAS approved the canonisation of a London-born Italian teenager who died from leukaemia in 2006 at the age of 15.

Carlo Acutis will become the Catholic Church’s first millennial saint and will likely be proclaimed as a saint during the Church’s Jubilee year in 2025.

Jubilee years happen every 25 years within the Church, though there are sometimes “extraordinary” jubilees called outside of this period.

The theme of next year’s Jubilee is ‘Pilgrims of Hope’, with the Church aiming to highlight the impacts of war, the ongoing effects of COVID-19 pandemic, and the climate crisis.  

Yesterday morning at the Vatican, Pope Francis gathered the College of Cardinals to review the causes of canonisation of several ‘Blesseds’.

When a miracle is attributed to someone after their death, they receive the title ‘Blessed’.

A second posthumous miracle then needs to be attributed to this person in order for them to be considered for Sainthood.

In May of this year, Pope Francis formally recognised a second posthumous miracle attributed to Acutis, paving the way for him to become a saint.

Pope Francis and the College of Cardinals voted yesterday morning to approve the canonisation of Acutis, as well as 14 other people.

Acutis’s miracles

In February 2020, Pope Francis formally recognised the first miracle attributed to Acutis, the healing of a Brazilian child who was born with a pancreatic defect that made eating difficult.

This miracle is said to have occurred after the Brazilian child came into contact with one of Acutis’s t-shirts.

After the recognition of this first miracle, Acutis was beatified and received the title of ‘Blessed’ and began to be venerated by some within the Church. 

The second miracle, formally recognised in May, involved the healing of a 21-year-old woman from Costa Rica named Valeria Valverde.

In 2022, she was involved in a bicycle accident and suffered a severe head injury while studying in Florence, Italy.

Valverde then had emergency surgery to reduce pressure on her brain, but her family were told that the situation was critical, and that Valverde may not survive.

Her mother is said to have gone on a pilgrimage to the tomb of Acutis in the Italian town of Assisi, where the teenager is buried in jeans, a tracksuit top, and Nike shoes.

Image from 2020 of a woman visiting the tomb of Carlo Acutis in Assisi, Italy.

According to the Church, on the same day that Valverde’s mother went to pray at the tomb of Acutis, Valverde began to breathe on her own and the following day she was able to move her arms and speak.

She was able to leave the intensive care unit ten days later and it is reported that Valverde has made a full recovery, needing only a week of physiotherapy after leaving hospital.

The Catholic Church defines a miracle as a “sign or wonder such as a healing, or control of nature, which can only be attributed to divine power”.

For something to be formally recognised by the Church as a miracle, two-thirds of a medical board consisting of at least six doctors are required to sign a statement affirming that the supposed miraculous event cannot be explained by natural causes.

The miraculous recovery must also be a complete, spontaneous, immediate healing from a documented medical condition.

Relic of Acutis

Last year, a relic of Acutis travelled to Ireland and a statue of the teenager was commissioned for St Eugene’s Cathedral in Derry.

A commissioned statue of Carlo Acutis in St Eugene’s Cathedral, Derry. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

It was a first-class relic, meaning it is a piece of the body of Acutis.

The relic in question was a piece of his pericardium, the fibrous membrane that encloses the heart and blood vessels.

Acutis, who died in Monza, Italy, has been dubbed “the patron saint of the internet” and “God’s influencer”.

He was interested in computer science and made a website dedicated to Eucharistic miracles.

When Acutis was first declared ‘Blessed’ by the Church in 2020, Pope Francis remarked that it “demonstrated that holiness is attainable even in our modern world.”