Carlo Acutis, a British-born computer prodigy who died in 2006 at the age of 15, will become the Catholic Church’s first millennial saint on September 7. His canonization has sparked a remarkable surge in popularity among young Catholics globally, who view him as a relatable ‘digital disciple’ for the modern age. Over the past year, more than 1 million people have flocked to the central Italian town of Assisi, where Acutis’s body – covered in a wax mould of his likeness and dressed in his blue tracksuit top, jeans and trainers – is on view behind a glass-panelled case in Santa Maria Maggiore church. His heart is in a gold casket in the town’s San Rufino cathedral, while pieces of tissue from his pericardium – the membrane enclosing the heart – have toured the world in the lead-up to his canonization. n18oc_world n18oc_crux
