Pope Leo XIV proclaimed the first two saints of his papacy in a historic ceremony at St. Peter’s Square in Rome on Sunday, including the first of the millennial generation.
Blesseds Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati, two Italian laymen born nearly a century apart, joined the ranks of Mother Theresa and Francis of Assisi as saints of the Roman Catholic Church at 10 a.m. local time at the public ceremony, which was attended by thousands of devotees.
Acutis’ mother, Antonia Salzano, and his brother and sister were in St. Peter’s Square when Leo XIV canonized her son alongside Frassati.
“After due deliberation and frequent prayer for divine assistance and having sought the counsel of many of our brother bishops, we declare and define blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis to be saints and we enroll them among the saints, decreeing they are to be venerated as such by the whole church,” Leo XIV said.
Saint Carlo Acutis, born in England in 1991 but raised in Milan, used his passion for technology to promote devotion to the Catholic Church, establishing a website documenting Eucharistic miracles and Marian apparitions — reported supernatural appearances of Mary, mother of Jesus Christ.
His young age, as well as his proficiency with technology, helped spread the teachings of the church to a new generation.
Dubbed “the first millennial saint” or “the patron saint of the internet,” Acutis died of leukemia at the age of 15 in 2006.
Following his death, two miracles have been attributed to him — a prerequisite for canonization — leading to his beatification by the late Pope Francis in October 2020.
Francis was initially set to canonize Acutis himself, but the ceremony was postponed after the pontiff’s death in April at the age of 88.
The first miracle was the sudden medically inexplicable recovery of a Brazilian boy with a malformed pancreas who prayed to Acutis for healing in 2013.
This was followed up in 2022 when a woman from Costa Rica bounced back from a severe head injury after a bicycle accident in Florence, Italy.
The mother of the woman, who doctors believed might not survive, visited Acutis’ tomb in Assisi on the same day she began to breathe on her own, later making a full recovery.
This second miracle attributed to Acutis was officially recognized by the Vatican in May 2024.
Frassati, born in Turin to a prominent Italian family in 1901, was known for his “deep spirituality, love for the poor and enthusiasm for life,” according to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
An avid outdoorsman, mountain climber and a member of the Dominican Third Order, Frassati helped polio patients through the St. Vincent de Paul Society before succumbing to the disease himself at age 24 in 1925, which he likely contracted from one of the patients he served.
The miracles attributed to Frassati paving the way for sainthood came 90 years apart.
The first was a 40-year-old laborer who was cured of a disease of the spine called Pott’s disease after praying for Frassati’s intercession in 1933.
He made a full recovery, living for another 35 years.
The Vatican recognized this occurrence as a miracle in May 1990, and Frassati was beatified — proclaimed blessed — by Pope John Paul II.
The second miracle came in 2017, when an American seminary student, Juan Gutierrez, recovered from a severe Achilles tendon injury suffered during a basketball game after making a novena to Frassati.
As he prayed, Gutierrez said he felt “a sensation of heat” in his ankle, which then healed, enabling him to return to playing the sport he loved.
Pope Francis formally declared his recovery a miracle by decree in November, 2024.
According to the rules of the church, there are three steps on the path to sainthood.
The first is when a deceased person is declared “venerable” — or formally recognized by the pope as having lived a “heroically virtuous life” or offering their life to the faith, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops writes.
After one miracle occurs as a result of the venerable’s intercession, the candidate for sainthood is then beatified, or recognized as a “blessed.”
A second miracle is required following beatification before a candidate is eligible for canonization, at which point they are formally recognized by the church as a saint.
The most recent canonization ceremony was on Oct. 20, 2024, when Pope Francis named 14 people saints during a St. Peter’s Square mass.
Eleven of them were among the “Martyrs of Damascus” — men murdered in 1860 in Syria for refusing to renounce their Christian faith.
Three others were 19th-century founders of religious orders.
Francis canonized 942 saints during his pontificate.
