MAMT||Museo Mediterraneo dell' Arte, della Musica e delle Tradizioni (EN)

CANONISATION OF CARLO ACUTIS AND PIER GIORGIO FRASSATI

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Vatican City  ||  | 07 September 2025
Iniziative (EN) - MAMT – Mediterranean Museum of Art, Music and Traditions

A delegation from the “United States of the World” and the “Fondazione Mediterraneo”, led by Michele Capasso and Pia Molinari, attended the solemn ceremony for the canonisation of Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati.
Tens of thousands of people attended the ceremony, celebrated by Pope Leone XIV. Among them were the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella, the President of the Chamber of Deputies Lorenzo Fontana, the Undersecretary to the Presidency of the Council Alfredo Mantovano, and Pier Ferdinando Casini.
Frassati, from Turin, died in 1925 at the age of 24. He was a faithful Dominican layman known for his work helping the sick and poor. Of the two new saints, however, the most famous is undoubtedly Carlo Acutis: born in London but Italian, he died in 2006 of leukaemia at the age of just 15. Even before becoming a saint, he had already become very popular and a cult of considerable size had formed around him, even outside Italy. He is much talked about because he is the first saint of the generation of people born between the 1980s and 1990s, and because he has long been referred to as a future “patron saint” of the Internet. The reason for this is that he was an avid user of digital tools during his lifetime. Another much-discussed aspect of Acutis's figure is his remains, dressed in ordinary clothes: jeans, a sweatshirt and trainers. His body is preserved in the Sanctuary of the Spoliation, located in the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Assisi, another place where his devotees have gathered today.
Acutis was declared a “Servant of God” in 2018 (the title given by the Catholic Church to the faithful for whom a cause for beatification and canonisation has been initiated). In 2020, he was declared “Blessed” and finally recognised as the intercessor for at least two miracles, thus allowing him to meet the conditions necessary for sainthood, which was then authorised by Pope Francis. The process that led to his sainthood was exceptionally rapid.
Carlo Acutis received the title of “Ambassador of the United States of the World” on 30 June 2023.