Carlo Acutis: Brazilian boy's healing attributed to 'God's influencer'

A millennial might be the next saint of the Catholic Church.

Meet Carlo Acutis, an Italian whose brief life was devoted to promoting the Catholic faith online and providing for the poor.

Acutis, who passed away due to leukemia in 2006 at the age of 15, is set to become a saint after the Vatican declared that he had interceded from heaven to save two lives.

In this series, GMA News Online explores the life of Acutis, the miracles credited to his intercession, and the significance of having a millennial saint as a role model for young Catholics worldwide.

FIRST OF THREE PARTS

A teenager who lived his life spreading the Catholic faith online and helping the poor is set to become the first millennial saint.

Italian Carlo Acutis was credited with healing two individuals miraculously through his intercession, one of whom was a boy in Brazil who had a rare pancreatic disease.

The boy, Mattheus Vianna, was cured after he venerated the relic of Acutis during the feast of Our Lady of Aparecida on October 12, 2013, exactly seven years after Acutis succumbed to leukemia at age 15.

''On the way home from the Mass, Mattheus told his mother that he was already cured. At home, he asked for French fries, rice, beans, and steak — the favorite foods of his brothers,'' the Catholic News Agency said in a 2021 report.

''He ate everything on his plate. He didn’t vomit. He ate normally the next day and the next. Vianna took Mattheus to physicians, who were mystified by Mattheus' healing.''

The investigation involved medical examinations, and after finding no scientific cause, the healing was declared a miracle.

SECOND PART: Carlo Acutis: A mother's faith clears millennial's path to sainthood

THIRD PART: 'A saint of our time': Blessed Carlo Acutis offers relatable holiness in modern times

The Roman Catholic Church teaches that only God performs miracles, but that saints who are believed to be with God in heaven intercede on behalf of people who pray to them. A miracle is usually the medically inexplicable healing of a person.

On October 10, 2020, Acutis, who earned the moniker ''God's influencer,'' was beatified after the first miracle attributed to him.

Acutis was born in London to Italian parents on May 3, 1991. He contributed to creating websites for the Church.

Acutis also documented verified Eucharistic miracles across the globe and put up a website called “Eucharistic Miracles of the World.”

A Eucharistic miracle is an extraordinary sign of Jesus’ presence where the Eucharist no longer appears in the form of bread and wine, but of the biological qualities of human flesh or blood.

''He knew logarithms, he knew how to make programs and read university texts on these topics. But what did he do? He didn't use these media to chat, have fun, or anything like that. His zeal for the Lord and his love for the knowledge of Jesus prompted him to make use his talents to create a website on Eucharistic miracles and an exhibit on the same subject that has traveled around the world,'' his mother Antonia Salzano told Vatican News ahead of his beatification.

Acutis was also known for his kindness towards the poor.

"With his savings, he bought sleeping bags for homeless people and in the evening he brought them hot drinks," his mother said in a separate report by the Catholic News Agency.

Acutis died on October 12, 2006. He was buried in Assisi, Italy.

Path to sainthood

Before the pope declares a person a saint, the Church must conduct a rigorous investigation.

According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, five years must pass from the time of a candidate's death before a cause may begin to allow greater balance and objectivity in evaluating the case and to let the emotions of the moment dissipate. The pope, however, can dispense with this waiting period.

If they were proven to live a life of holiness, pureness, kindness, and devotion, a candidate for sainthood would be recognized as a “Servant of God."

The candidate must then be found to have the four cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, temperance, and courage, as well as the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, to be named “Venerable” and of heroic virtues.

A candidate must be proven to have caused a miracle to be beatified and called “Blessed” and another miracle to be canonized and called ''Saint.''

Another miracle was attributed to Acutis nearly four years after his beatification. —with reports from Reuters and Agence France-Presse/VBL, GMA Integrated News