{"id":120572,"date":"2025-09-07T10:24:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T10:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/120572\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T10:24:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T10:24:13","slug":"from-london-baptism-to-first-millennial-saint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/120572\/","title":{"rendered":"From London baptism to first millennial saint"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aleem MaqboolBBC Religion Editor<\/p>\n

\"EPAEPA<\/p>\n

Carlo Acutis – nicknamed as ‘God’s influencer’ – created websites documenting ‘miracles’ <\/p>\n

A London-born boy has become the first millennial saint, in a ceremony steeped in an ancient ritual presided over by Pope Leo on Sunday.<\/p>\n

In his short life, Carlo Acutis created websites documenting “miracles” as a means of spreading Catholic teaching, leading some to nickname him God’s influencer.<\/p>\n

His canonisation had been due in late April, but was postponed following the death of Pope Francis.<\/p>\n

More than a million people are estimated to have made a pilgrimage to the Italian hilltop town of Assisi where Carlo’s body lies, preserved in wax.<\/p>\n

But there is another pilgrimage site associated with Carlo Acutis that has seen an increase in visitors since it was announced that he was to be made a saint – Our Lady of Dolours Church in London.<\/p>\n

The font at the back of the Roman Catholic church in the Chelsea area was where Carlo was baptised as a baby in 1991.<\/p>\n

To the side of the church an old confession booth has been converted into a shrine to him. In it, a relic holder contains a single strand of Carlo’s hair.<\/p>\n

“His family were in finance and they were working really temporarily in London,” says Father Paul Addison, a friar at the church.<\/p>\n

“Although they didn’t use the church much, they decided to come and ask to have the child baptised. So Carlo was a flash, a very big flash, in the life of the parish community,” he says.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Father Paul Addison shows the font where Carlo was baptised in 1991<\/p>\n

Carlo was not yet six months old when his parents moved back to their home country of Italy, and he spent the rest of his life in Milan.<\/p>\n

There, he was known for a love of technology and is said to have enjoyed playing video games.<\/p>\n

While some who knew Carlo Acutis say he did not appear to be especially devout, as a teenager he did create a website \u2013 pages of which are now framed at the church in Chelsea \u2013 in which miracles were documented.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Pages of Carlo’s website are now framed at Our Lady of Dolours Church in Chelsea<\/p>\n

But he died of leukaemia aged just 15.<\/p>\n

In the years after his death, Carlo’s mother, Antonia Salzano, visited churches around the world to advocate for him to be a saint.<\/p>\n

As part of the process, it had to be proved her son had performed “miracles”.<\/p>\n

“The first miracle, he did the day of the funeral,” says Carlo’s mother.<\/p>\n

“A woman with breast cancer prayed (for) Carlo and she had to start chemotherapy and the cancer disappeared completely,” she explains.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Antonia Salzano has spent years advocating for her son to be made a saint<\/p>\n

Pope Francis attributed two miracles to Carlo Acutis and so the test was passed and he was due to be made a saint on 27 April.<\/p>\n

But Pope Francis died during the preceding week.<\/p>\n

Some followers who had travelled to Rome for the canonisation instead found themselves among the tens of thousands of mourners at the late pontiff’s funeral – Diego Sarkissian, a young Catholic from London, was one of them.<\/p>\n

He says he feels a connection to Carlo Acutis and is excited by his canonisation.<\/p>\n

“He used to play Super Mario video games on the old Nintendo consoles and I’ve always loved video games,” Mr Sarkissian says.<\/p>\n

“The fact that you can think of a saint doing the same things [as you], wearing jeans, it feels so much closer than what other saints have felt like in the past,” he says.<\/p>\n

Approval for someone to become a saint can take decades or even centuries, but there is a sense that the Vatican fast-tracked Carlo Acutis’ canonisation as a means of energising and inspiring faith in young people.<\/p>\n

The Catholic Church will be hoping Sunday’s events do just that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aleem MaqboolBBC Religion Editor EPA Carlo Acutis – nicknamed as ‘God’s influencer’ – created websites documenting ‘miracles’ A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-120572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}