“The influence of God”: the Vatican rescheduled the canonization of Carlo Acutis, the first Saint Millenial
Carlo Acutis's beatification service in 2020, photo: Massimilian Miglirato-CPP / IPA / Profimedia Images
Pope Leon has announced that the wait will end in a few months regarding the canonization of the first Catholic Holy Generation, Carlo Acutis, which will take place on September 9 this year, reports Reuters.
Acutis, an Italian born in the UK, died of leukemia in 2006 at the age of 15. The canonization ceremony, by which it will be declared a holy, was initially scheduled to take place on April 27 this year, but the event was suspended after Pope Francis's death a few days before.
The new Pope Leon XVI announced, during a meeting with the cardinals to discuss the causes of canonization on Friday that a new date was set on the declaration of Acutis as a holy.
The Pope did not specify where the canonization ceremony will take place, but they are usually celebrated in St. Peter's Square. Acutis's canonization has attracted the attention of many young Catholics and it is expected to bring tens of thousands of people to Rome.
Acutis, sometimes nicknamed the “influence of God”, learned several programming languages before death and created websites to spread the Catholic faith.
His mother, Antonia Salzano, told Reuters in April that the folk attraction of her son comes from the fact that she lived a life similar to other teenagers in the 2000s.
The Vatican attributes to Carlo Acutis two miracles
“Carlo was an ordinary child, like everyone else,” she said. “He was playing, he had friends and he was going to school. But his extraordinary quality was that he opened his heart door for Jesus and put Jesus first in his life,” she added.
To be declared holy means that the Church believes that person is now in Heaven, along with God.
The causes of canonization are analyzed by a Vatican department, which must confirm that the proposed person has led a proper life, and this process usually involves verifying two miracles attributed to the intercession of the future in front of God.
Acutis is credited with the healing of a 4 -year -old Brazilian boy, who was suffering from a serious pancreatic malformation, and a 21 -year -old woman from Costa Rica, who was in critical condition after a bicycle accident.
The parents of both people prayed to Acutis for help, the church authorities said.
During the September 7 ceremony, Pope Leo will also canonize Pier Giorgio Frassati, an Italian young man for the help offered to those in need, who died of poliomyelitis in the 1920s.
