Pope Leo XIV called 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.
BLesss Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati, two Italian laymen born almost a century apart, joined the ranks of mother Theresa and Franciscus of Assisi as saints of the Roman Catholic Church at 10.00 am local time at the public ceremony, which was charged by thousands of twists.
Acutis’ mother, Antonia Salzano, and his brother and sister were on Sint -Peter square when Leo XIV sanctified her son alongside Frassati.
“After the necessary deliberation and frequent prayer for divine help and having sought the council of many of our brother bishops, we explain and define blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis to be saints and we register them among the saints,” said Leo XIV.
Saint Carlo Acutis, born in England in 1991, but raised in Milan, used his passion for technology to promote dedication to the Catholic Church and to set up a website that documents Eucharistic miracles and Marian appearances – reported supernatural appearances of Mary, mother of Jesus Christ.
His young age, as well as his skill 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 at the age of 15 at leukemia in 2006.
After his death, two miracles are attributed to him – a condition for canonization – which leads to his salvation by the late Pope Francis in October 2020.
Francis was initially established to saint Acutis himself, but the ceremony was postponed after the death of the Pope in April at the age of 88.
The first miracle was the sudden medically inexplicable recovery of a Brazilian boy with a deformed pancreas who in 2013 as an acutis pray for healing.
This was succeeded in 2022 when a woman from Costa Rica bounced back from a serious head injury after a bicycle accident in Florence, Italy.
The mother of the woman, who believed from the doctors it might not survive, visited the grave of Acutis in Assisi on the same day that she started breathing alone and later made a complete recovery.
This second miracle attributed to Acutis was officially recognized by the Vatican in May 2024.
Frassati, born in Turin in a prominent Italian family in 1901, was known for his “deep spirituality, love for the poor and enthusiasm for life,” said the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Frassati, an avid outdoor person, mountaineer and member of the Dominican third order, helped outpatient patients via St. Vincent de Paul Society before he collapsed at the age of 24 in 1925 to the disease he probably contracted by one of the patients he served.
The miracles that were attributed to Frassati who cleared the road for Sainthood came apart for 90 years.
The first was a 40-year-old worker who was healed of a spine’s disease called Pott’s disease to pray for the intercession of Frassati in 1933.
He recovered completely and lived for 35 years.
The Vatican acknowledged this event as a miracle in May 1990, and Frassati was defeated – named blessed – by Pope John Paul II.
The second miracle came in 2017, when an American seminar, Student, Juan Gutierrez, recovered from a serious Achilles tendon injury during a basketball game after making a Novena to Frassati.
While he prayed, Gutierrez said that he felt “a feeling of warmth” in his ankle, which then healed, so he could return to playing the sport he loved.
Pope Franciscus formally declared his recovery a miracle in November 2024.
According to the rules of the church, there are three steps on the path to holiness.
The first is when a deceased person is explained ‘respectable’ – or formally recognized by the Pope as a ‘heroic virtuous life’ or offer their lives to faith, writes the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
After one miracle occurs as a result of the intercession of honor, the candidate for Sainthood is subsequently beaten or recognized as a ‘blessed’.
A second miracle is required after the 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 was on October 20, 2024, when Pope Franciscus 14 people Saints mentioned during a Sint -Peter’s Square mass.
Eleven of them belonged to the “martyrs of Damascus” men killed in Syria in 1860 because they refused to abandon their Christian faith.
Three others were 19th-century founders of religious orders.
Francis Canne 942 Saints during his pontificate.
#Pope #Leo #XIV #saints #pontificate #including #millennial #holy