According to an announcement from the Vatican, Carlo Acutis, a teenager once referred to as God’s influencer and known for spreading the gospel via the internet and for his love for video games, is about to be canonised as a saint. This would make Carlo the Catholic Church’s first millennial saint.
Born in 1991, Carlo Acutis passed away from leukaemia when he was 15 years old and is remembered as being a huge gamer with a love for Halo, Super Mario and Pokemon, as well as spreading awareness of the Catholic faith.
The fact that Carlo Acutis is set to become a saint is wild, especially considering that becoming a saint can often take hundreds of years. However, the exception was made because of just how popular Carlo Acutis was and still is in the community.
Someone can’t be nominated for canonisation until five years after their death, and the process for Carlo Acutis started six years after his. In 2018, he was decreed “Venerable,” followed by “Blessed” in 2020, and he is now set to be declared a saint in 2025—after which the Catholic Church will remember him annually on a feast day, and parishes and schools can be named after him.
However, where this story gets even stranger is a spin-off project, if you will, called The Acutis Game. The Acutis Game describes itself as the first Catholic open-world metaverse in which players? Users? Those interested? will follow Acutis as he time travels over the centuries, meeting other saints and key figures in Catholic history.
If you’re interested in checking out The Acutis Game, you can watch its trailer below.