How a 15-Year-Old Gamer Became the Patron Saint of the Internet

After being named a "Servant of God" successful 2013, Acutis reached the 2nd rung connected the ladder to sainthood erstwhile helium was venerated by Pope Francis successful 2018. His assemblage was exhumed and brought to a tomb successful Assisi wherever helium inactive lies today, dressed successful his trademark '90s teen garb. “It’s a beauteous happening that for the archetypal clip successful past you tin spot a saint dressed successful jeans, sneakers, and a sweatshirt. That’s a large message,” Father Carlos Acácio Gonçalves Ferreira, the shrine’s rector, said astatine the time. A Franciscan monk based astatine the tomb, noted that “many young people” were visiting.

Next, Acutis and his followers needed a literal miracle—one helium had performed himself. “It has to beryllium thing which can't beryllium scientifically explained, truthful proving this is difficult. For example, this mightiness necessitate doctors to corroborate that they can't explicate however a healing has occurred,” Hutchings says. In 2013 a pistillate successful Brazil claimed that praying to Acutis had helped heal her son’s pancreatic defect. In 2020 Pope Francis authenticated the occurrence and Acutis was beatified, culminating successful a ceremonial celebrating his virtuous life. “According to Google Trends, much radical were searching for accusation astir Carlo Acutis than astir the Pope,” Mares notes.

Then, successful May 2024, a second miracle was recognized, involving the healing of a 21-year-old miss from Costa Rica injured successful a motorcycle accident. In 2022, her parent had knelt astatine Acutis' sedate and prayed for his help. Her girl past miraculously resumed breathing without enactment and made a afloat recovery. The Pope approved Acutis’ canonization successful July—with an authoritative ceremonial acceptable for 2025.

It’s uncommon for a saint to beryllium truthful young and unheard of, and inactive scope this lofty presumption truthful soon aft their death. “It is singular that Carlo Acutis volition beryllium canonized truthful adjacent to the day that helium was born. For context, of the 912 saints canonized by Pope Francis, the adjacent astir caller commencement day was successful 1926,” Mares says. It makes him the archetypal ever millennial saint and, arsenic immoderate Catholics person enactment it, “God’s influencer” and the “patron saint of the internet.”

Meanwhile, the cult of Carlos Acutis is continuing to dispersed crossed the world. Relics, including a portion of the expanse that shrouded his corpse, a fragment of 1 of his sweatshirts, and his existent heart, person toured internationally, precocious coming to the UK for the New Dawn Catholic Pilgrimage. Online, you tin bargain Carlo Acutis figurines, rosary beads, posters, and commemorative keychains. In North Lanarkshire, Scotland, a life-size statue of Acutis has been erected astatine Carfin Grotto, and there’s a stained-glass model successful Wiltshire to pull young churchgoers.

There's adjacent a comic publication telling his story, and a VR acquisition offering players a accidental to measurement into Acutis’ sneakers. And, for Catholics who are incapable to wage their respects successful person, his tomb tin beryllium visited (and donated to) virtually done an always-on livestream.

The Church doesn’t prime saints—campaigns commencement with the Catholic community—but Acutis’ popularity meshes with its tendency for a young relation model. It besides highlights the Church’s clasp of tech. “The Pope has been making an yearly lecture astir communications exertion for 58 years,” says Hutchings. “It perfectly makes consciousness for Catholics to look for a saint of the net who represents the godly and faithful usage of technology.”

There is, of course, inactive a stigma surrounding the internet’s imaginable for blasphemous behavior. “The Pope has warned that today’s integer property perpetually tempts young radical to ‘self-absorption, isolation, and bare pleasure,’” Mares says. And immoderate devout Catholics are inactive struggling with temptation. “With exertion changing astatine specified a accelerated gait today, galore Christians are inactive grappling with however champion to unrecorded retired their religion successful the satellite of laptops, compartment phones, and societal media,” Mares says.

But the Pope besides called the net a “gift from God” successful 2014, and helium recognizes its imaginable for spreading the connection of Christ—it conscionable depends connected however it is applied. And successful the lawsuit of Acutis, tech was utilized successful a pious way. “Acutis utilized the caller exertion successful precisely the mode that the Church wants to spot it used: to beforehand committedness to Catholic teaching, virtuous living, and devotion to the rituals of the section church,” Hutchings explains. The Church volition anticipation that the relatable “saint successful sneakers” who watched cartoons and surfed the web volition resonate with a assemblage looking for an idol.

This nonfiction archetypal appeared successful the November/December 2024 variation of WIRED UK magazine.