MANILA, Philippines – Pope Francis and a group of cardinals approved on Monday, July 1, the canonization of 15-year-old Carlo Acutis, but did not announce the date when he will be included in the list of Catholic saints. 

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“Blessed Carlo Acutis will likely be proclaimed a saint during the 2025 Jubilee, possibly along with other canonizations,” Vatican News reported on Monday.

The Jubilee is a Holy Year that traditionally takes place once every 25 years. It is expected to draw some 30 million pilgrims to Rome seeking forgiveness of their sins.

The canonization of Acutis is expected to give a new face for the Catholic Church during its 2025 Holy Year.

Acutis, a young computer programmer who died of leukemia on October 12, 2006, has been dubbed “the first millennial saint,” one who even watched Pokémon and played the PlayStation. The Italian-born teenager has a huge following in predominantly Catholic Philippines, which received the faith as a Spanish colony and is now struggling to keep the faith young and relevant at a time of secularism.

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The Pope and the College of Cardinals, particularly those who reside in Rome, decided on Acutis’ canonization in a meeting on Monday called a consistory. Their approval on Monday was a formality, given that the Vatican had confirmed on May 23 that a second miracle – a prerequisite to sainthood – was attributed to Acutis’ intercession.

During Monday’s consistory, they also authorized the canonization of 14 other candidates for sainthood. Vatican News said 11 of them “were killed in hatred of the faith during the 1860 Syrian Civil War,” and are called the “Martyrs of Damascus.” The 14 other candidates will be canonized on October 20. – with reports from Reuters/Rappler.com