Pope Francis paved the way for the canonization of the first saint of the millennial generation on Thursday, attributing a second miracle to a 15-year-old Italian computer whiz who died of leukemia in 2006.

Carlo Acutis, born on May 3, 1991, in London and then moved with his Italian parents to Milan as a child, was the youngest contemporary person to be beatified by Francis in Assisi in 2020.

Acutis, who died of acute leukemia on Oct. 12, 2006, was put on the road to sainthood after Pope Francis approved the first miracle attributed to him: The healing of a 7-year-old Brazilian boy from a rare pancreatic disorder after coming into contact with an Acutis’ relic, a piece of one of his T-shirts.

According to Vatican News, the second miracle recognized on Thursday is related to a woman from Costa Rica, who in July 2022 made a pilgrimage to Acutis’ tomb in Assisi to pray for the healing of her daughter, who had suffered severe head trauma after falling from her bicycle. The young woman started showing signs of recovery immediately after her mother’s plea.

so the vatican has all of this kids clothes preserved as relics and they cut off pieces of his t-shirts so they can mail them to cancer patients. just imagining like, spongebob, batman, metallica t-shirts being guarded as holy relics in rome for centuries to come.

  • Dolores [love/loves]
    hexbear
    77
    23 days ago

    has all of this kids clothes preserved as relics and they cut off pieces of his t-shirts so they can mail them to cancer patients

    whatever happened to chopping off some bones as relics this is tacky as fuck

    • FlakesBongler [they/them]
      hexbear
      47
      23 days ago

      For real, my church had gilded skulls and finger bones, in addition to all the chalices and holy hand grenades

      Really put me on my path to being a morbid little kid

      • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]
        hexbear
        34
        23 days ago

        Same. My parents wondered why I got into goth shit and demonology. Church, guys. Church made me get into it.

    • SoyViking [he/him]
      hexbear
      16
      23 days ago

      Young people these days are so woke that they don't even want to chop up a corpse for souvenirs any more.

  • Palacegalleryratio [he/him]
    hexbear
    51
    23 days ago

    Catholicism is a fake ass religion. How can anyone take this shit seriously?!

    Also if I know anything about 15 yr old boys who are internet users, it’s that the real relic shouldn’t be one of his t shirts, it should be the crusty sock down the back of his wash basket.

    • Tachanka [comrade/them]
      hexbear
      33
      23 days ago

      Catholicism is a fake ass religion. How can anyone take this shit seriously?!

      still waiting to see a real ass religion

      • Diuretic_Materialism [he/him]
        hexbear
        12
        23 days ago

        Polytheists are the only real religious people. "Oh yeah our Gods are a bunch of inbred weirdos who live on a Mountain and rule us by arbitrary whims so it totally makes sense that we have to burn horse foreskins for them cuz that's just some weird shit they're into, also those people like 20 miles away who have their own pantheon of inbred weirdos are totally legit and if enough of us fuck enough of them we'll just meld the two inbred weirdo families together."

        Everyone else is trying to nerd there way into thinking there's some rational benevolent AI controlling everything. Monotheists are the OG scifi nerds.

  • ElGosso [he/him]
    hexbear
    50
    23 days ago

    Why were people praying at his tomb when he wasn't a saint yet? Why did he have a tomb and not just a grave? Lots of weird shit happening here.

    Found this on his wikipedia page:

    Carlo Acutis was born in London, England, on 3 May 1991, to Andrea Acutis and Antonia Salzano, members of wealthy Italian families.[4][6][7][8] The Acutis family had a prominent position in the Italian insurance industry.[9] The Salzanos ran a publishing company.[10] Acutis' maternal great-grandmother was born in the United States and came from a family of landowners in New York.[11]

    So this kid's rich parents made a hefty donation to the church and now he's a saint? Is that how it works?

    • SoyViking [he/him]
      hexbear
      26
      23 days ago

      Is that how it works?

      Some saints were canononized because of genuine religious reasons but rich and powerful people has always been able to lobby the church to get one of their guys canonised, that's why most European countries have a saint who also happens to have been a king.

    • @ssj2marx@lemmy.ml
      hexbear
      22
      23 days ago

      To become a saint you need miracles, to get miracles you need people praying to you, so I would think people praying to a non-saint is business as usual - but usually that's because you were such a well known and respected person in life that people spontaneously built a shrine to you. Sucks that this kid died so young, but was he really on par with St Francis or did his wealthy family pump the numbers?

  • Redcuban1959 [any]
    hexbear
    45
    23 days ago

    Due to having played video games in life, Acutis has been described as the "first saintly gamer".

  • edge [he/him]
    hexbear
    44
    23 days ago

    So his "miracles" were posthumous and had nothing to do with the internet?

    • FunkyStuff [he/him]
      hexbear
      50
      23 days ago

      There are very few miracles that happened in the lives of saints. The point of the whole 2 miracles to canonize a saint is that once you die, people who think you went to heaven pray for your intercession. If you really are in heaven then you'd ask God to make the miracles happen. Then the idea is that if a miracle happens, it was because of the saint's intercession. But this only works if people are ONLY praying for the purported saint's intercession.

      It's kinda a weird system, I've gone to some Masses hosted by an order of nuns that was founded by a nun who is now in the process of being beatified. They asked the attendees to pray for her intercession, but you could ONLY pray for her intercession, no one else's, or else we don't know who interceded.

      • ClimateChangeAnxiety [he/him, they/them]
        hexbear
        30
        23 days ago

        Ya know, that explains why there are so many fucking saints, and also is absolutely bullshit.

        We’ve gotta switch to only counting the ones who actually performed their miracles while alive, that’ll make the numbers a lot more reasonable too

      • Absolute@lemmygrad.ml
        hexbear
        13
        23 days ago

        “Beatified” should also be a term for when you spend 2 hours doing heavy glam makeup for the club

      • edge [he/him]
        hexbear
        1
        edit-2
        21 days ago

        Oh I thought it was primarily "miracles" they performed in life, that later need to be "proven" to canonize them.

    • Redcuban1959 [any]
      hexbear
      31
      23 days ago

      The miracles have nothing to do with the internet, but Carlo was a programmer, he made a website for his local church and he was unfortunely a gamer.

      • edge [he/him]
        hexbear
        2
        21 days ago

        It seems weird to call someone the patron saint of something if their saintly status has nothing to do with that thing.

        • Redcuban1959 [any]
          hexbear
          1
          21 days ago

          I believe it's more about the person themselves than the miracles. For example, Joseph (Jesus' legal father not the Egyptian dude) worked as a carpenter for most of his life. That's why they decided to give him the title of patron saint of workers and fatherhood. In some countries, the title is related to the place where the person lived or was born.

  • 2Password2Remember [he/him]
    hexbear
    41
    23 days ago

    jesus christ catholicism is embarrassing lol, imagine reading this and being like "yup the pope is infallible!"

    Death to America

    • Highalectical@lemmygrad.ml
      hexbear
      12
      23 days ago

      Papal infallibility is rarely invoked. It's not like the pope can just say nonsense like "computers are powered by lizard cum" and people have to agree with him because he's the pope.

      • 2Password2Remember [he/him]
        hexbear
        5
        22 days ago

        of course. strictly speaking the pope is only infallible when speaking ex cathedra, ie on matters of doctrine. it's still ridiculous to believe a guy who has canonized a fuckin g*mer is infallible about anything

        Death to America

  • RyanGosling [none/use name]
    hexbear
    39
    23 days ago

    I love how god won’t directly intervene to help you because of muh free will. But he will select one (1) random suffering individual in a random poor village and alleviate one (1) piece of suffering. Very epic

    • Tachanka [comrade/them]
      hexbear
      22
      edit-2
      23 days ago

      motherfuckers will sincerely say with zero self awareness that God "saved them" because they survived like a natural disaster or mass shooting where everyone else died.

  • SorosFootSoldier [he/him, they/them]
    hexbear
    38
    edit-2
    23 days ago

    This kid is NOT my patron saint. The patron saint of the internet is pro-gamer FAZE_DARKSIDE who holds the highest k/d ratio in Counter Strike history.

  • @PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
    hexbear
    37
    edit-2
    23 days ago

    Blasphemous apropriation. Internet is the first true manifestation of Machine God's will to His chosen people and His avatar, therefore the first coming of Omnissiah.

  • Cummunism [they/them, he/him]
    hexbear
    34
    23 days ago

    do they say how many people had a relic and still died? im gonna bet noooooo. i fuckin hate catholicism.

  • Big_Bob [any]
    hexbear
    24
    23 days ago

    I can confirm. I once touched his dakimakura and no woman has ever bothered me again. Miracles are real, folks. Praise jesus!

  • anarchoilluminati [comrade/them]
    hexbear
    21
    23 days ago

    When I die, I'm donating all my old socks and dirty underwear to the Catholic Church to be archived and distributed as relics.

  • ClimateChangeAnxiety [he/him, they/them]
    hexbear
    20
    23 days ago

    Okay so I’m all for the idea that you only get declared a saint after death. That makes sense to me. And I’m fine with determining posthumously that things they did were in fact miracles.

    What I’m not cool with is the miracles happening posthumously. I feel like you should have to perform the miracles while alive, it has to be a semi-conscious act. You can’t just say “Oh my blindness was healed and it’s because of a random dead Italian kid”