In just a few months, the world will have its first digital saint.
Pope Francis on Wednesday announced plans in April to canonize a teenage web designer who documented miracles online and used his tech skills to maintain websites for local Catholic organizations.
Carlo Acutis, who died of leukemia in Italy in 2006 at age 15, will be canonized during the Jubilee for Adolescents on April 25-27, according to Vatican News.
The church has attributed two miracles to Acutis, who was born to Italian parents in London and was informally known as “God’s influencer.”
In May, the pope attributed a second miracle to the teen, who is set to become the church’s youngest contemporary saint. The move came four years after he was beatified in 2020 after one miracle was attributed to him.
The church has not detailed the miracles.
The Roman Catholic Church teaches that only God performs miracles but that saints who are believed to be with God in heaven intercede on behalf of people who pray to them. A miracle is usually the medically inexplicable healing of a person.
The pope also said Wednesday he would canonize Pier Giorgio Frassati, a young Italian man who was known for helping those in need and died of polio in the 1920s, during the weekend of July 28 to Aug. 3.
