00:00Meet the first Catholic saint of the millennial generation.
00:03His name was Carlo Acutis,
00:05and he's also already as close to a celebrity as a saint can be,
00:08with a reported 1 million pilgrims visiting his tomb last year.
00:12Todos lo amiramos,
00:13and we always pray for his intercessión.
00:17But what did Acutis actually do to achieve sainthood?
00:20And can he help repair the battered image of the Catholic Church,
00:24especially among young people?
00:26Born in London and raised in Italy,
00:27Acutis died of leukemia in 2006, at age 15.
00:31He was buried in the town of Assisi in central Italy,
00:34where his body has been on display since 2019.
00:37Dressed in sneakers, jeans and a hoodie,
00:39there is a 24-7 live stream of his shrine.
00:42Acutis' family and the church describe him as a regular teenager
00:46with an exceptional devotion to God,
00:48including during his terminal illness,
00:50which they say he faced without complaining.
00:52He was also passionate about computers.
00:54He even created this website to document miracles,
00:57earning him nicknames like
00:59the patron saint of the internet and God's influencer.
01:02In order to qualify for sainthood, two things are essential,
01:05having lived a spiritually exemplary life,
01:08and producing at least two scientifically unexplainable miracles after death,
01:12both of which are assessed by the Vatican,
01:14usually over several years.
01:16The first miracle attributed to Acutis dates back to 2013.
01:20A Brazilian child was reportedly healed from a congenital pancreatic disease
01:24after touching one of his relics.
01:26The second miracle was the healing of a Costa Rican student,
01:29who fully recovered from severe head trauma following a bike accident.
01:33The Catholic Church is scrambling to keep up its appeal,
01:36especially among the youth.
01:38Scandals of systemic sex abuse and cover-ups also continue to damage its reputation,
01:42with fewer men choosing to enter the priesthood,
01:45and hundreds of thousands of Catholics around the world
01:47saying they are no longer attending Mass
01:49or are leaving the Church altogether.
Comentarios