Carlo Acutis is poised to become the first millennial saint, with his work in using technology and social media to propogate the Catholic faith inarguably playing a significant role in dragging the Church into the 21st Century – at least in how it markets and ingratiaties itself to younger audiences.

‘God’s influencer’ – as he became known – died in 2006 at the age of 15, just days after launching a website seeking to document every reported Eucharistic miracle.

Acutis’ journey toward sainthood began with his first ‘attributed miracle’ when he supposedly healed a Brazilian child suffering from a congenital disease affecting his pancreas. Pope Francis recognised this ‘miracle’ in 2020, resulting in Carlo’s beatification – the second of three stages in caonisation, a declaration by the Pope that a deceased person is in a state of bliss.

Recently, the Pope approved a second ‘miracle’ associated with Carlo. A 21-year-old girl from Costa Rica, studying in Florence, suffered a brain bleed after a bicycle accident. With her situation critical, her mother travelled to Assisi, praying at Acutis’ tomb. Ten days later, the girl was discharged from intensive care, her brain supposedly healed.

A Rare Confluence of Religion and Technology

London-born Acutis grew up in Milan, where he managed his parish’s website and later worked with a Vatican-based academy. His programming skills extended beyond websites; he learned languages like C++ and Java, tools like Adobe and Photoshop. Shortly before his passing, he launched a website documenting every reported Eucharistic miracle.

His role in evangelisation through the internet earned him the title of patron for World Youth Day in Lisbon.

The Vatican teaches that only their God performs miracles, but saints intercede on behalf of those who pray to them. Carlo’s second attributed ‘miracle’ paves the way for his canonisation.

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Beyond this, his website has now been translated into several different languages, and used as the basis for an exhibition which has travelled around the world.

His life is also remembered in the UK, where in 2020, the Archbishop of Birmingham established the Parish of Blessed Carlo Acutis incorporating churches in Wolverhampton and Wombourne.

And there is a statue of the soon-to-be-saint in Carfin Grotto, a Roman Catholic shrine in Motherwell.