Pope to make British boy dubbed ‘God’s influencer’ a saint after performing ‘miracles’

British-born Carlo Acutis will be among the first saints canonised by new Pope Leo XIV after the Vatican recognised a series of miracles performed by the boy

A British boy who died aged just 15 is be made a saint by the Pope after performing so-called miracles.

Carlo Acutis, who died of leukemia in 2006, will finally be canonised a Catholic saint on Sunday.

The ceremony, which will male the British-born Italian boy the first canonised saint from the millennial generation, had originally been scheduled for April but was postponed after Pope Francis’s death.

Acutis will be among the first saints canonised by the newly-elected Pope Leo XIV.

He is joined by Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, an Italian mountaineer who died of polio in 1925, aged 24, after a lifetime of charitable deeds. The two will be canonised at a shared ceremony led by the Catholic leader.

Acutis, born in London and raised in Milan, came to prominence within the Christian world after teaching himself coding to promote Catholic devotion. He created websites cataloguing cases of the Eucharistic miracle – that is, of bread transforming into body tissue during Mass – and apparitions of the Virgin Mary.

After his death, he was buried in the Italian town of Assisi, the home of the revered St Francis of Assisi, as per Acutis’s last request.

St Francis was a 12th-century saint who lived a life of extreme poverty and allegedly received the wounds of Christ. Pope Francis chose to name himself after the saint.

Acutis’s pathway to canonisation started in 2012, when the Archdiocese of Milan initiated proceedings on the sixth anniversary of his death.

In 2019, the Vatican corroborated an alleged miracle performed by the deceased believer. A young boy in Brazil who suffered from pancreatic problems prayed to Acutis to not “throw up as much.” He felt immediately healed and asked his mother to eat solid foods after having previously received an all-liquid diet.

In May 2024, a second miracle was recognised when the mother of a Costa Rican woman prayed to Acutis to save her daughter, who had fallen from a bike, suffered a brain haemorrhage, and was given extremely low odds to survive.

After the prayer, the girl started breathing independently and by the next day was able to walk, with all signs of the haemorrhage disappearing.

The Vatican has a stringent canonisation process through which it recognises saints, who are people it believes lived a holy life and to now be in Heaven with God. One of the main criteria for becoming a saint is the proof that a miracle has happened.

Acutis’s canonisation had originally been scheduled for 27 April 2024 to coincide with the Jubilee of Teenagers, but had to be postponed after Pope Francis’s death on Easter Monday, 21 April 2025.

Earlier this year, Acutis’s mother, Antonia Salzano, reflected on the lad: “He was an ordinary boy… But his extraordinary quality was the fact that he opened the door of his heart to Jesus and put Jesus in the first place in his life.”

Tens of thousands are expected to attend the ceremony which will take place at St. Peter’s Square.

Acutis will be the second British-born saint canonised this century. In 2019, Pope Francis bestowed the title saint to John Henry Newman, a 19th-century priest at University of Oxford academic.

His Assisi tomb, where his body is encased in wax to prevent decomposition and preserve his likeness, is already a popular devotional site. It is visited by thousands of worshippers a day.

His body lays on public view, wearing a blue track top, jeans, and Nike trainers.