A boy who was born in London in 1991 and died of leukaemia at the age of only 15 is to become the Catholic church’s first millennial saint.
On Thursday Pope Francis decreed that a second posthumous miracle has been attributed to Carlo Acutis, qualifying the teenager for canonisation. Out of 912 people canonised by the Pope, the most recent birth date was previously 1926.
Acutis has been suggested as a patron saint of the internet due to his love of computer programming and building websites. He was born in London to an Italian mother and a half-English, half-Italian father who was working in the UK as a merchant banker. His family moved back to Milan when he was young and he was reportedly very