VATICAN CITY, — Pope Leo XIV declared a Sunday, giving the next generation of Catholics a relatable role model who used technology to spread the faith and earn the nickname “God’s influencer.”

Leo canonized Carlo Acutis, who died in 2006, during an open-air Mass in St. Peter’s Square before an estimated 80,000 people, many of them millennials and couples with young children. During the first saint-making Mass of his pontificate, Leo also canonized another popular Italian figure who died young, Pier Giorgio Frassati.

Leo said both men created “masterpieces” out of their lives by dedicating them to God.

“The greatest risk in life is to waste it outside of God’s plan,” Leo said in his homily. The new saints “are an invitation to all of us, especially young people, not to squander our lives

See Full Page