An Italian teenager dubbed 'God's Influencer' for his efforts to spread the Catholic faith online will become the first millennial saint on Sunday at a canonisation attended by thousands of pilgrims.
Carlo Acutis, who died of leukemia in 2006 aged 15, will be raised to sainthood by Pope Leo XIV in a ceremony in St Peter's Square at the Vatican.
The teenager's body, dressed in jeans and a pair of Nike trainers, lies in a glass-walled tomb in Assisi, visited by hundreds of thousands of people a year.
His canonisation, initially set for April but postponed when Pope Francis died, will be watched by faithful on giant screens in Assisi, a medieval city and pilgrimage site in the central region of Umbria.
Carlo Acutis, born in London in 1991, had an ardent faith, though his parents were not particularly devout.
He grew up in the northern Italian city of Milan, where he attended mass daily and had a reputation for kindness to bullied children and homeless people, bringing the latter food and sleeping bags.
A fan of computer games, Carlo taught himself basic coding and used it to document miracles and other elements of the Catholic faith online.
The Vatican has recognised Carlo as performing two miracles himself - a necessary step on the path to sainthood.
The first was the healing of a Brazilian child suffering from a rare pancreatic malformation, the second the recovery of a Costa Rican student seriously injured in an accident.
In both cases, relatives had prayed for help from the teenager, who was beatified in 2020 by Pope Francis.
Canonisation is the result of a long and meticulous process, involving an investigation by the Vatican and specialists who assess whether the obligatory miracles have taken place. Final approval rests with the pope.
Sunday's canonisation ceremony will be Pope Leo XIV's first since his election in May.
