A Gamer Will Soon be Canonized as the Catholic Church's Saint

The Chruch has already recognized two miracles required to attain sainthood.

Carlo Acutis, an Italian teenager renowned for his deep faith and passion for video games, is set to become a saint, the Vatican announced, marking the first time in the history of Christianity that a gamer will be canonized.

Born in 1991, Carlo dedicated much of his short life to performing good deeds, including helping the homeless and supporting his local church. At the age of 8, Carlo owned a PlayStation console and was an avid technology and video game enthusiast, enjoying titles like Halo, Super Mario, and Pokémon. Being a tech-savvy individual, the teenager used his computer skills to help the Christian cause in any way he could, designing a website documenting various Catholic miracles. Tragically, Carlo passed away from leukemia in 2006 at the young age of 15.

In 2012, Carlo was first nominated for canonization, a rather uncommon occurrence given that historically, decades or even centuries often pass between a person's death and their sainthood declaration. He was decreed Venerable in 2018 and Blessed in 2020 after a Brazilian mother's prayer to Carlo resulted in the miraculous healing of her son, who had a pancreatic birth defect. Later, the Church recognized a second miracle attributed to Carlo, in which a girl was healed from a serious head injury after her mother prayed at his tomb in Italy.

According to the Vatican, Pope Francis has decreed that the canonization of Carlo Acutis will proceed after cardinals convened by the pope voted in favor of his sainthood. The canonization is scheduled to take place during the Catholic Church's Jubilee celebrations in 2025, which will make Carlo the first saint to have ever played video games, the first saint from the millennial generation in the history of the Church, and most likely the patron saint of gamers and gaming as a whole.

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Published 03 July 2024
Theodore McKenzie
Head of Content