Pope Francis Announces 2025 Canonizations for Carlo Acutis, Pier Giorgio Frassati During Jubilee Celebrations
Nov 22, 2024

Pope Francis Announces 2025 Canonizations for Carlo Acutis, Pier Giorgio Frassati During Jubilee Celebrations

According to the Diocese of Assisi, Acutis’ canonization Mass is expected to take place on Sunday, April 27, at 10:30 a.m. local time in St. Peter’s Square.

Pope Francis announced on Wednesday that Blesseds Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati, two young Catholics beloved for their vibrant faith and witness to holiness, will be canonized during two major Jubilee celebrations dedicated to young people.

The surprise announcement came at the conclusion of the Pope’s weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square as Francis celebrated World Children’s Day. 

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni later confirmed that Carlo Acutis’ canonization will occur during the Church’s Jubilee of Teenagers, taking place April 25-27, and Pier Giorgio Frassati’s canonization will take place during the Jubilee of Youth, from July 28 to Aug. 3.

According to the Diocese of Assisi, Acutis’ canonization Mass is expected to take place on Sunday, April 27, at 10:30 a.m. local time in St. Peter’s Square.

Both soon-to-be saints are beloved by many Catholic young people for their enthusiastic pursuit of holiness. The two canonizations are expected to bring many young people to the Eternal City in 2025 for the Catholic Church’s Jubilee of Hope.

Carlo Acutis: The First Millennial Saint

Carlo Acutis, an Italian computer-coding teenager who died of cancer in 2006, is known for his great devotion to the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.

Born in 1991, Acutis is the first millennial to be beatified by the Catholic Church. Shortly after his first Communion at the age of 7, Carlo told his mother: “To always be united to Jesus: This is my life plan.” 

To accomplish this, Carlo sought to attend daily Mass as often as he could at the parish church across the street from his elementary school in Milan.

Carlo called the Eucharist “my highway to heaven,” and he did all in his power to make this presence known. His witness inspired his own parents to return to practicing the Catholic faith and his Hindu au pair to convert and be baptized.

Carlo was a tech-savvy kid who loved computers, animals and video games. His spiritual director has recalled that Carlo was convinced that the evidence of Eucharistic miracles could be persuasive in helping people to realize that Jesus is present at every Mass.

Over the course of two and a half years, Carlo worked with his family to put together an exhibition on Eucharistic miracles that premiered in 2005 during the Year of the Eucharist proclaimed by Pope John Paul II, and it has since gone on to be displayed at thousands of parishes on five continents.

Many of Carlo’s classmates, friends and family members have testified how he brought them closer to God. Carlo was a very open person and was not shy about speaking with his classmates and anyone he met about the things that he loved: the Mass, the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist and heaven.

He is remembered for saying, “People who place themselves before the sun get a tan; people who place themselves before the Eucharist become saints.”

Carlo died at the age of 15 in 2006, shortly after being diagnosed with leukemia. Before he died, Carlo told his mother, “I offer all of my suffering to the Lord for the Pope and for the Church in order not to go to purgatory but to go straight to heaven.”

Thousands of people visited Carlo’s tomb in Assisi following his beatification in the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi on Oct. 10, 2020.

Since his beatification, Catholic schools from the Australian outback to England have been named after Acutis, as well as countless ministries and parish initiatives.

Pope Francis encouraged young people to imitate Blessed Carlo in prioritizing “the great gift of the Eucharist” in his message for the upcoming diocesan World Youth Days.

In a decree on May 23, Pope Francis approved the miraculous healing of a 21-year-old young woman from Costa Rica named Valeria Valverde who was near death after seriously injuring her head in a bicycle accident while studying in Florence in 2022.

The family was told that her situation was very critical and that she could die at any moment, according to the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints.

Six days after the accident, Valverde’s mother went on a pilgrimage to Assisi to pray for the healing of her daughter at the tomb of Blessed Carlo Acutis, leaving a written note.

On that same day, Valverde began to breathe on her own; and on the following day she recovered the use of her upper limbs and partly recovered her speech.

Valverde was discharged from the intensive care unit 10 days after her mother’s pilgrimage and underwent further tests that showed that the hemorrhagic right temporal cortical contusion in her brain had completely disappeared.

Contrary to medical predictions, Valverde spent only one week in physical therapy; and on Sept. 2, 2022, two months after her accident, she went on a pilgrimage to Carlo Acutis’ tomb in Assisi with her mother to celebrate her complete healing.

Pier Giorgio Frassati: Verso L’Alto

Pier Giorgio Frassati, who died at the age of 24 in 1925, is also beloved by many today for his enthusiastic witness to holiness that reaches “to the heights.”

The young man from the northern Italian city of Turin was an avid mountaineer and third-order Dominican known for his charitable outreach.

Born on Holy Saturday on April 6, 1901, Frassati was the son of the founder and director of the Italian newspaper La Stampa.

At the age of 17, he joined the St. Vincent de Paul Society and dedicated much of his spare time to taking care of the poor, the homeless and the sick, as well as demobilized servicemen returning from World War I.

Frassati was also involved in the Apostleship of Prayer and Catholic Action. He obtained permission to receive daily Communion.

On a photograph of what would be his last climb, Frassati wrote the phrase Verso L’Alto, which means “to the heights.” This phrase has become a motto for Catholics inspired by Frassati to strive for the summit of eternal life with Christ.

Frassati died of polio on July 4, 1925. His doctors later speculated that the young man had caught polio while serving the sick.

John Paul II, who beatified Frassati in 1990, called him a “man of the eight beatitudes,” describing him as “entirely immersed in the mystery of God and totally dedicated to the constant service of his neighbor.”

The Vatican has yet to announce the recognition of the second miracle attributed to Blessed Pier that made his canonization possible. The confirmation of the miracle from the Vatican, along with the announcement of the specific dates of the canonization Masses, are expected in the future. 


Image Source: AB/NCRegister/Diocese of Assisi/Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

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