The canonization of Carlo Acutis, who died in 2006 at age 15, comes as the church is trying to reach more young people, including Gen Z and Gen Alpha.

Leo canonized Carlo Acutis, who died in 2006, during an open-air Mass in St. Peter’s Square that was attended by tens of thousands of people, many of them millennials and couples with young children.

Pope Leo XIV Sunday elevated to sainthood two young Italians who died eight decades apart, Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati, during a mass in St. Peter's Square before a crowd of 80,000. Acutis,