'Cyberapostle' teen to become first millennial saint

A London-born Italian teenager who spent his short life spreading the faith online will become the Catholic Church's first millennial saint after the Vatican attributed to him a second miracle.

Carlo Acutis, who died of leukemia in 2006 aged 15, was beatified four years ago after the Vatican ruled he had miraculously saved another boy's life.

He will now become a saint after Pope Francis on Thursday approved another miraculous act, an intercession on behalf of a young woman in Florence who suffered severe head trauma in July 2022.

Carlo's mother Antonia Salzano described the decision as a "great joy", telling Vatican Radio that "many had prayed for this canonisation".

"I was not an example of sanctity, but for me Carlo was like a teacher, he was special, never a complaint, never a criticism."

Carlo was born in London on May 3, 1991, to Italian parents and moved with them to Milan as a young boy, where he grew up with a huge interest in computers.

"He was considered a computer genius... But what did he do? He didn't use these media to chat and have fun," Salzano said at the time of his 2020 beatification.

Instead, "his zeal for the Lord" drove him to make a website on miracles, she said.

Dubbed "the Cyberapostle", Carlo also warned his contemporaries that the internet could be a curse as well as a blessing.

While his mother said the family rarely attended church, Carlo was religious from a young age.

He also enjoyed playing football and was known in his neighbourhood for his kindness to those living on the margins of society.

He died on October 12, 2006, in Monza, northern Italy.

  Jeans and trainers 

 The Vatican had previously claimed the teen had posthumously interceded in 2013 to cure a Brazilian boy suffering from a rare pancreatic disease.

He was beatified -- made "Blessed" -- in the Italian town of Assisi, the home of the pope's namesake Saint Francis, who dedicated his life to the poor.

Carlo's remains were transferred to the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Assisi and put on display in a tomb with a glass side.

He appeared astonishingly lifelike, his face reconstructed and body dressed as he lived -- in jeans, trainers and a sweatshirt.

It has become a place of pilgrimage for many Catholics -- and the site of the second miracle attributed by the Vatican.

According to the Vatican's news outlet, a young student in Florence, Valeria, suffered severe head trauma after falling off her bicycle.

Doctors gave her a very low chance of survival.

Her mother Liliana, from Costa Rica, made a pilgrimage to Carlo's tomb in Assisi to pray for his help.

That same day, July 8, 2022 -- six days after the accident -- Valeria began to breathe on her own, and within weeks had recovered, Vatican News said.

In a statement on Thursday, the Vatican's Dicastery for the Causes of Saints said the pope had authorised a decree marking "the miracle attributed to the intercession of Blessed Carlo Acutis".

Francis will convene a meeting of cardinals to fix the date for the canonisation.