Pope Leo XIV canonized the Catholic Church’s first millennial saint over the weekend—a teen computer whiz who died of leukemia in 2006 at age 15 and who used technology to spread his faith, earning him the nickname “God’s influencer,” according to The Associated Press.
Some 80,000 worshippers filled St. Peter’s Square in Rome on Sunday to see the canonization of Carlo Acutis, including many millennials and young children with their parents, The Washington Post reported. Pope Leo also canonized Pier Giorgio Frassati, another young Italian who died at age 24 in 1925.
Acutis’s ascent to sainthood is being called one of the fastest in modern history, and comes at a time when many younger generations, from Gen Zers to millennials, struggle to connect with the church. For some, Acutis, who was tech-savvy and reportedly loved video games, may be seen as more relatable and a good role model for the next generation of Catholics.
The former pope, Francis, also championed Acutis. “Carlo was well aware that the whole apparatus of communications, advertising, and social networking can be used to lull us, to make us addicted to consumerism and buying the latest thing on the market, obsessed with our free time, caught up in negativity,” Francis said in 2019, as reported by The Post. “Yet he knew how to use the new communications technology to transmit the Gospel, to communicate values and beauty.”
The teen, who was born in London and raised in Milan by a well-known Italian Catholic family, designed a website documenting reported Eucharistic miracles around the world, which has become a teaching tool for parishes worldwide and is seen as a positive way to use technology in support of religion.