Pope declares 15-year-old computer whiz, known as ‘God’s influencer’, a saint

Pope Leo declared a 15-year-old computer whiz, Carlo Acutis, the first millennial saint on Sunday.

The move is thought to be designed to give the next generation of Catholics a relatable role model, who used technology to spread the faith and earned the nickname “God’s influencer”.

Leo canonised Carlo Acutis, who died in 2006, during an open-air Mass in St Peter’s Square that was attended by tens of thousands of people, many of them millennials and couples with young children.

Leo also canonised another popular Italian figure who died young, Pier Giorgio Frassati, during the first saint-making mass of his pontificate.

Leo said both men had created “masterpieces” out of their lives by dedicating them to God.

“The greatest risk in life is to waste it outside of God’s plan,” he said in his homily.

The new saints “are an invitation to all of us, especially young people, not to squander our lives, but to direct them upwards and make them masterpieces”, he said.

The Vatican said 36 cardinals, 270 bishops and hundreds of priests had signed up to celebrate the mass along with Leo in a sign of the saints’ enormous appeal to the hierarchy and ordinary faithful alike.

Both ceremonies were scheduled for earlier this year, but were postponed following Pope Francis’s death in April.

Carlo was born on May 3 1991 in London to a wealthy but not particularly observant Catholic family. They moved back to Milan soon after he was born and he was said to have had a typical, happy childhood, albeit marked by increasingly intense religious devotion.

The youngster was particularly interested in computer science and devoured college-level books on programming even as a youngster.

He earned the nickname “God’s Influencer”, thanks to his main tech legacy: a multilingual website documenting so-called Eucharistic miracles recognised by the church, a project he completed at a time when the development of such sites was the domain of professionals.

Carlo was known to spend hours in prayer before the Eucharist each day. The Catholic hierarchy has been trying to promote the practice of Eucharistic adoration because, according to polls, most Catholics do not believe Christ is physically present in the Eucharistic hosts.

But Carlo was said to limit himself to an hour of video games a week, apparently deciding long before TikTok that human relationships were more important than virtual ones.

This discipline and restraint has proved appealing to the Catholic hierarchy, who have sounded the alarm about the dangers of today’s tech-driven society.

In October 2006, at age 15, Carlo fell ill with what was quickly diagnosed as acute leukemia, and died within days. He was entombed in Assisi, which is known for its association with another popular saint, St Francis.

In the years since his death, young Catholics have flocked by the millions to Assisi, where they can see the young Carlo through a glass-sided tomb, dressed in jeans, trainers and a sweatshirt.

Carlo has proved to be enormously popular with young Catholics, who are said to see in him a relatable, modern-day role model.

“It’s like I can maybe not be as great as Carlo may be, but I can be looking after him and be like, ‘What would Carlo do?'” said Leo Kowalsky, a secondary-school pupil at a school in Chicago, in the US, attached to the Blessed Carlo Acutis Parish.

The student said he was particularly excited that his own namesake — Pope Leo — would be canonising the patron of his school.

“It’s kind of all mashed up into one thing, so it is a joy to be a part of,” the pupil said in an interview last week.

Mr Frassati, the other saint being canonised on Sunday, lived from 1901-1925, when he died at age 24 of polio.

He was born into a prominent Turin family but is known for his devotion to serving the poor and carrying out acts of charity while spreading his faith to his friends.