Photo: Carlo Acutis /AP< /p>
15-year-old Carlo Acutis, born in London and died of leukemia at the age of 15, will become the first centenary saint of the Catholic Church. As Pope Francis decreed, a second, posthumous miracle gives a child the right to canonization. The first was during his lifetime.
Of the 912 people canonized by the Catholic Church, the last date falls on 1926, writes The Guardian.
It is reported that Carlo was a computer genius who helped spread Roman Catholic teachings online before his death in 2006. He was born in London in 1991 and moved to Milan as a child with his Italian parents.
As Carlo's mother said, from the age of three, her son asked to visit the churches they passed by in Milan, and donated his pocket money to poor people in the city.
Acutis also offered support to classmates whose parents were going through a divorce, defended peers with disabilities, when they were bullied, delivered food and sleeping bags to the homeless.
The right to holiness
In Catholicism people may pray to deceased people who they believe are in heaven, asking them to speak to God on their behalf, such as asking the person to recover from an illness or injury.
If it later turns out that that the person in question unexpectedly recovered, the Vatican can classify this as a miracle. If two miracles are attributed to a deceased person and approved by the Pope, then they are entitled to the title of saints.
Two miracles
Acutis took the path to sainthood after Pope Francis approved a miracle attributed to him: a seven-year-old boy from Brazil recovered from a rare pancreatic disease after coming into contact with one of Acutis' T-shirts.
The Catholic Church's special unit for the study of the authenticity of miracles , the Medical Council of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, is now investigating claims that a Costa Rican woman made a miraculous recovery after a bicycle accident in Florence in 2022.
21-year-old Valeria Valverde is reported to have undergone an emergency trepanation skull to relieve pressure on the brain, and her family was told she was in critical condition.
Six days later, her mother went to pray for her daughter's recovery at the tomb of Acutis in the Umbrian city of Assisi.
< p>The church said Valverde began breathing without a ventilator that same day and regained the use of her upper limbs and speech.
She was reportedly discharged from intensive care 10 days later, and scans showed that the brain contusion had disappeared.
Prepared by: Sergey Daga