Pope Francis and Catholic Church cardinals on Monday voted to appoint an Italian teenager who died of leukemia in 2006 to become the first millennial saint.
Carlos Acutis, born in London, England in 1991, will become the newest Catholic saint.
Acutis gained the nickname “God’s influencer” for using his computing skills to spread awareness of the Catholic faith.
“As I did, you too can become holy,” Acutis’ mother, Antonia Salzano, said. “Nevertheless, [with] all the media, the technologies, it seems sometimes that holiness is something that belongs to the past. Instead, holiness is also something nowadays in this modern time.”
In order to become a saint, the church typically requires that a candidate has two miracles attributed to them.
Acutis’ first miracle reportedly came after he was credited with healing a Brazilian child of a congenital disease affecting his pancreas.
His second miracle reportedly involved the healing of a university student in Florence who had a brain bleed after suffering head trauma.
According to Vatican News, Acutis was known “for his devotion to Eucharistic miracles and Marian apparitions, which he catalogued on a website he designed.”
