Pope Francis said he’ll canonize Carlo Acutis next April, setting the eagerly awaited date for the late teenager to grow to be the Catholic Church’s first millennial and digital saint.
Francis made the announcement at the tip of his weekly general audience on Wednesday, saying he would proclaim the church’s youngest contemporary saint through the Jubilee of Adolescents on the Vatican on April 25-27.
Officials later confirmed the canonization Mass would occur April 27 on the Vatican.
Acutis, who was born to Italian parents in London, was an online designer who died of leukemia in Italy in 2006 on the age of 15. Francis beatified him in 2020 in Assisi, where his tomb draws a gradual stream of pilgrims.
Touted because the “patron saint of the web,” Acutis used his natural tech talent to create a web site to catalog miracles and took care of internet sites for some local Catholic organizations.
Francis announced in May that he had approved a second miracle attributed to Acutis’ intercession, paving the best way for Wednesday’s announcement.
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