Featured Image Credit: Carlo Acutis
Topics: World News, Religion, Pope Leo, News
Lucy Devine
A British teenager will become the first millennial saint after performing two unexplainable miracles since his death.
Carlo Acutis was born in London, but lived most of his life in Milan, where he was dedicated to the Catholic Church and to helping those less fortunate than himself.
The teen received his first communion when he was seven and regularly donated money to the poor as a child.
Acutis spent his evenings cooking hot meals for the homeless when he was old enough, and earned the nickname 'God's influencer', due to his affinity for tech.
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His mother, Antonia Salzano, said her son had a 'special relationship' with God.
Acutis wrote at the age of seven: "My life plan is to be always close to Jesus."
In 2006, Acutis passed away at the age of 15 from leukaemia, but has been considered for sainthood after the Vatican determined he was behind two unexplainable miracles.
Acutis' preserved body, dressed in jeans and trainers, lies in a glass tomb in Assisi, where it is visited by hundreds of thousands of people every year.
On Sunday (September 7), he will become the first millennial saint at a canonization by Pope Leo XIV, in a ceremony at the Vatican.
Canonization is the official admission into sainthood.
The first miracle Acutis performed was on a two-year-old Brazilian boy, named Matheus Vianna.
Vianna was diagnosed with the congenital disorder, annular pancreas, where pancreatic tissue forms a ring around the first part of the small intestine.
Acutis' mother turned to the church for help, which she received from Father Marcelo Tenorio, who was blessing Acutis' body as part of a pre-canonization.
Father Tenorio touched a piece of the teen's clothing to the toddler and asked for him to be healed.
Vianna's family said after the incident, the toddler was never sick again.
It wasn't the only miracle that Acutis was behind.
The Vatican also believe the teenager is responsible for saving a woman named Valeria Valverde, who had suffered a brain haemorrhage after a crash.
Valverde's mom had prayed at Acutis' coffin, and the woman was later discharged from hospital after medics said her brain haemorrhage had fully healed.
While Acutis' canonization was originally set for April, it was postponed due to the death of Pope Francis.
It will be the first canonization that Pope Leo XIV has performed since his election earlier this year.