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Teen Coder Made First Millennial Catholic Saint at Youthful Vatican Event

By Joshua McElwee, Reuters
A person holds up an artwork on the day Pope Leo XIV leads a Holy Mass for the canonisation of Carlo Acutis, a British-born Italian boy who will become the first millennial to be made a Catholic saint, and Pier Giorgio Frassati, in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, Sept. 7, 2025. REUTERS/Matteo Minnella
Sep 9, 2025
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A teenager who died of leukemia in 2006 became the first Catholic saint of the millennial generation on Sunday, in a Vatican ceremony led by Pope Leo XIV and attended by an estimated 70,000 young worshippers from dozens of countries.

Carlo Acutis, a British-born Italian boy who died aged 15, learned computer code to build websites to spread his faith. His story has drawn wide attention from Catholic youth, and he is now at the same level as Mother Teresa and Francis of Assisi.

Leo, the first U.S. pontiff, canonized Acutis on Sunday along with Pier Giorgio Frassati, a young Italian man who was known for helping those in need and died of polio in the 1920s.

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A person holds up an artwork on the day Pope Leo XIV leads a Holy Mass for the canonisation of Carlo Acutis, a British-born Italian boy who will become the first millennial to be made a Catholic saint, and Pier Giorgio Frassati, in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, Sept. 7, 2025. REUTERS/Matteo Minnella