The Catholic Church is set to canonize its first gamer saint.
The Vatican announced yesterday that it would canonize Carlo Acutis, an Italian teenager who died in 2006 at age 15 from leukemia, as the first millennial saint.
Born in London in 1991, before moving to Milan, Italy, Acutis grew up in the Catholic faith. He was a frequent volunteer, helping take care of homeless individuals, cleaning up litter in his neighborhood and working at his local church.
In addition to his social work, Acutis was also known for enjoying video games. He was known to play games like Super Mario, Pokemon and Halo. According to his mother, Antonia Salzano, he purchased a PlayStation when he was eight but limited himself to just an hour of play a week since he was worried about getting addicted. (Read: Variable lists 6 games to get you started playing video games)
Beyond that, Acutis was also adept with technology and was known to some as "God's influencer" due to his work creating a website where he documented various Catholic miracles.
Should it push through then, Acutis' canonization would mark him as the Catholic Church's first gamer saint on top of being its first millennial one.
Canonization usually takes years and, more importantly, requires at least two miracles to be attributed to the candidate, on top of having been shown to live a life of faith.
Acutis, whose canonization was opened in 2012, already has two miracles associated with him. The first was a Brazilian boy with a severe birth defect preventing him from eating normally allegedly being healed after his mother prayed for Acutis' intercession. This led to Acutis' beatification (declared "Blessed"), in 2020.
A second miracle has since been attributed to him, a Costa Rican girl who was apparently healed from head trauma after her mother prayed at Acutis' tomb.
With both miracles recognized by the Vatican, Acutis is now set to be canonized and will likely be named a saint in 2025.
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