Overview

• Today’s Mass in St. Peter’s Square will proclaim the two beati as saints, the first canonizations presided over by Pope Leone XIV.
• Authorities prepared for very large crowds, with estimates ranging from at least 70,000 to several hundred thousand and with 36 cardinals, 270 bishops and over 1,700 priests concelebrating.
• Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella is expected at the ceremony, with both families present and relics including a fragment of Acutis’s heart and a garment piece from Frassati.
• The Church formally recognized two miracles attributed to Acutis’s intercession—a Brazilian child’s recovery in 2013 and a Costa Rican student’s healing in 2022—fulfilling the canonization requirements.
• Frassati, beatified in 1990, is honored for hands-on service to the poor and a vigorous lay spirituality that has long inspired young Catholics and student groups.