Today, Pope Leo XIV will perform his first two canonisations, both of which were due to take place earlier this year but postponed after the death of Pope Francis. The recipients will be Pier Giorgio Frassati, an early twentieth century Catholic activist from Turin, and the 21st century’s first saint, Carlo Acutis – also known by the awful Gen-Z nickname of ‘God’s influencer’. The canonisation process – from death to beautification and eventually sainthood, which can take centuries – rests on miracle-attribution, an activity that is as fascinating as it is philosophically flawed.

Acutis, a London-born Italian, was 15 years old when he died in 2006 from leukaemia. He created a website, launched just before his death, that sought to document every Eucharistic miracle around the world – that

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