Overview

• At a packed St. Peter’s Square, Pope Léon XIV formally declared Acutis a saint and canonized Pier Giorgio Frassati in the same ceremony.
• The Church’s recognition cites two posthumous healings attributed to Acutis: a Brazilian boy with a rare pancreatic malformation and a Costa Rican student recovering from a severe head injury.
• Acutis’s body remains on view in Assisi in a glass tomb with jeans, sweatshirt and Nike sneakers, drawing nearly one million visitors in 2024 with traffic rising this year.
• The event, postponed from April after Pope Francis’s death, marked Léon XIV’s first canonization and unfolded during the Catholic Jubilee.
• Experts continue to question the lifelike presentation of Acutis’s remains, noting possible cosmetic reconstruction, while the Vatican has not disclosed conservation methods.