Pope Francis clears way for teen Carlo Acutis to become first millennial saint
May 24 (UPI) -- Carlo Acutis, an Italian teen who died of leukemia, is poised to become the Catholic Church's first millennial saint.
Pope Francis on Thursday announced he would order Cardinals to convene to consider canonizing Acutis after recognizing a second miracle associated with him.
The miracle recognized Thursday involved a Costa Rican woman named Liliana whose daughter Valeria had suffered severe head trauma and doctors said she had a very low chance of survival.
Liliana prayed at Blessed Actuis' tomb in Assisi July 8, 2022, and heard from the hospital that Valeria had begun to breathe spontaneously the same day. The following day she began moving and partially regained speech.
A CAT scan July 18, 2022 showed a brain hemorrhage had disappeared. Afterward she made rapid progress in rehab therapy.
In October 2020 Acutis was beatified by Cardinal Agostino Vallini in Assisi.
A miracle associated with Acutis and approved by Pope Francis was an incident in 2013 when, according to church claims, Acutis intervened from heaven saving the life of a 7-year-old Brazilian boy.
According to the church, the boy was healed of a pancreatic disease after touching a t-shirt formerly worn by Acutis.
Acutis was a computer coder who got interested in eucharistic miracles despite not having been raised in a devout Catholic family.
Antonia Salzano, Acutis' mother, told the newspaper Corriere della Sera that he would ask to visit Milan churches when he was 3, give pocket money to poor people, support classmates whose parents were getting divorced, defend peers when bullied and would take food and sleeping bags to homeless people.
In Catholicism, if two miracles are attributed to a deceased person and approved by the pope, they qualify for sainthood.
