In Robertson Davies’ 1970 novel, Fifth Business, the eccentric saint enthusiast Dunstan Ramsay reflects on the significance of canonization, noting how each era reveals its values through the saints it celebrates. “Some ages like wonder-workers, and some prefer gifted organizers whose attention to business produces apparent miracles,” Davies wrote.
For centuries, the preoccupations of the Roman Catholic Church have been reflected in the canonization of saints — not just in terms of who gets to become one, but when. It makes sense, then, that in the digital age, Pope Francis is set to create the first real internet saint out of Carlo Acutis, who has been widely referred to as “God’s influencer.”
Born in London, England, in 1991 to Italian parents, Acutis grew up in Milan. He had a keen interest in computers and coding, and as a young teen designed several websites. Among them was a catalogue of all the miracles involving the eucharist (the consecrated bread and wine used during the rite of communion). The project took two and a half years and sadly, just days after the launch of the website in 2006, Acutis died of leukemia at the age of 15.
Since his death, Acutis has been on the path to sainthood, a process that typically involves four steps. After a formal request for canonization is made, the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints examines the candidate’s life and virtues. To be declared a saint, a prospect must perform two officially recognized miracles (unless they were a martyr, in which case, they just need one).
Back in 2020, Pope Francis recognized a first miracle attributed to Acutis, and earlier this year he recognized a second — both miraculous cures, which occurred after people prayed for the late teen’s intercession on behalf of their sick or injured loved ones (in Roman Catholic tradition, the faithful ask saints to intercede with God on their behalf or for someone else). That means Acutis is likely to become the first millennial saint sometime next year, and while he may be a worthy candidate for sainthood, Pope Francis’s interest in his canonization also tells a bigger story about the church’s goals as it tries to embrace the digital world.
When I asked Liam Temple, the Capuchin Fellow in the History of Catholicism at Durham University in England, about the significance of Acutis’s canonization, he told me that it reveals how modern technology can be harnessed as a fortifier of faith, rather than a threat. “Being digitally ‘switched on’ but not compromising your morality, when everything is so easily accessible on the internet, is undoubtedly an important message the new saint brings to younger generations of Catholics.”
In recent years, the Catholic Church has increasingly embraced digital technology as part of its broader mission to participate in an ever-changing world. Last June, Pope Francis became the first pope to ever take part in a G7 summit. While there, he addressed the group on the subject of AI, urging leaders to approach it with “healthy politics” so that its development could be aimed at “the good of every human being.” And in 2023, just a few years after he became the first pope to write a line of code as part of a contribution to a United Nations app, he endorsed a project called “Code with Pope.” The global initiative offers free online coding classes to children ages 11 to 15.
While other religious leaders might be more reluctant to engage with emerging technologies, Temple says Pope Francis “has often tried to keep the church relevant to contemporary debates and advances concerning science and technology, especially advocating for the need to remember that there is a strong moral dimension to these developments.”
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Pope Francis often directs these remarks to world leaders. But when it comes to the internet, how to navigate morality in lives that are lived increasingly online is something that people of all faiths and ages are trying to figure out. That might help explain the new wave of religious influencers popping up across social media, many of whom offer advice on what to do — and not to do — as devout digital citizens.
When Carlo Acutis died in 2006, the term “influencer” hadn’t yet taken on its current meaning. But in the years since, other young people have gained online followings by creating popular content around religion. On Instagram, hashtags like #Jesus and #Christian have 75.7 million and 22.9 million posts. Religious influencing can include creating content about interpretations of scripture, testifying on spiritual experiences, or even giving tips on things like relationships, parenting and modest dress. The tone ranges from aspirational to relatable, chastising to encouraging, and everything in between.
Twenty-one-year-old influencer Becky Lilley of Fredericton, whose Instagram account started as a journal of her day-to-day life as an autistic Catholic, tries to keep things light-hearted. Her posts are sometimes earnest, sometimes funny, but always kind. She strives to create a positive and non-judgmental space where people can explore Catholicism without feeling any pressure to convert.
“I do not preach on Catholic doctrine beyond the call to love each other like Christ does,” she says. “While it is important to have people preaching on these things as well, it is not what I feel called to do. Rather, I feel that my energy is best spent encouraging the world to show each other love.”
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Lilley says she sees both positives and negatives to religious influencing (and social media use in general). In her opinion, platforms like Instagram are a good way to find people with similar interests and values, and a powerful tool for evangelizing. However, she has also seen the downsides, especially in how the internet’s perceived anonymity can tempt people to say hurtful things they wouldn’t voice in a face-to-face interaction.
But the biggest drawback that applies particularly to religious influencers, she adds, is that people who are spending their days consuming content might not be getting out and living their faith. For some, social media might be more of an obstacle to their religious life than a tool.
The history of the Catholic Church is full of saints who are linked to the anxieties and ideals of the age they were canonized in. Temple points to the canonizations of Francis Xavier, Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of Ávila and Philip Neri, all of whom were made saints by Pope Gregory XV on March 12, 1622. These four religious figures had been important in the revival and reform of the Catholic Church during the Protestant Reformation, and their canonization was a symbolic renewal of the church.
Acutis’s canonization isn’t much different: in an age when technology and faith often seem at odds, he reminds us that the two often work in tandem. After all, movable type was once a daunting new technology, and yet the Gutenberg Bible revolutionized Christianity. Maybe someday we’ll have its equivalent in a social media post.
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Anne Thériault is a journalist in Kingston, Ont.
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