'God's influencer': Pope declares the first millennial saint
Pope Leo XIV has declared that a 15-year-old who died in 2006 is the first millennial saint during mass in a packed St Peter's Square.
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Thousands of people attended the long-awaited event that saw both London-born Italian Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati canonised by the new pope.
Acutis was known to have built websites to share Catholic teachings and miracles, which earned him the nickname of 'God's Influencer'.
He passed away at the age of 15 in October 2006 from acute leukaemia and was entombed in the Italian town of Assisi, known for its association with St Francis.
The late Pope Francis credited Acutis with two miracles: the recovery of a boy in Brazil from a rare congenital disease affecting his pancreas and the healing of a student in Florence with bleeding on the brain from a head trauma, whose mother had prayed at Acutis’s tomb in Assisi.
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Since he died, more than one million people have flocked to Assisi to see his body which is covered in a wax mould of his likeness which is on public display in a glass-panelled case in Santa Maria Maggiore church.
His heart is also on display at the San Rufino cathedral while pieces of his pericardium have toured the world in the lead-up to Sunday's event
Acutis was initially supposed to be canonised on April 27, but Pope Francis passed away in the preceding week, which led to it being postponed.
His sainthood has been pushed through very quickly, particularly in comparison to the other man who was declared a saint on Sunday.
Frassati was another young Catholic activist; however, it has taken 100 years since he died for him to be canonised by the Catholic Church.
He was dedicated to social justice and an opponent of fascism who spent much of his time helping the poor and needy.
He was recognised to be responsible for a single miracle, his relic and photo were prayed over by a man with tuberculosis. The man was healed and he lived another three decades in perfect health.
Speaking to those who gathered for the event on Sunday, Pope Leo said: "The greatest risk in life is to waste it outside of God’s plan."
He added that the new saints "are an invitation to all of us, especially young people, not to squander our lives, but to direct them upwards and make them masterpieces".