[Ammi]

…and meanwhile, in non politics/non election based news stories…


A London-born teenager who died of leukaemia aged 15 is to become the Catholic church’s first millennial saint.

Carlo Acutis was a computer prodigy who helped to spread Roman Catholic teaching online before his death in 2006. On Thursday, Pope Francis decreed that a second posthumous miracle has been attributed to Acutis, qualifying the teenager for canonisation.

Acutis was born in London in 1991 before moving to Milan with his Italian parents, Andrea Acutis and Antonia Salzano, as a child.

Out of 912 people canonised by Pope Francis, the most recent birth date was previously 1926.

Salzano previously told the newspaper Corriere della Sera that from the age of three her son would ask to visit churches they passed in Milan and would donate his pocket money to poor people in the city.

He said Acutis would also offer to support classmates whose parents were going through divorces, would defend disabled peers when they were bullied and would take meals and sleeping bags to rough sleepers in Milan.

Acutis taught himself to code while still at primary school, before using his skills to create websites for Catholic organisations, as well as one that documented miracles around the world.

Archbishop Domenico Sorrentino of Assisi said: “The Church in Assisi is in celebration. I plan to arrive in Assisi this evening to thank the Lord in a Eucharistic celebration. But as of now I join the faithful who are in the shrine for a prayer of praise.”

In Catholicism people can pray to deceased people who they believe to be in heaven to request they speak to God on their behalf, such as asking for a person to recover from an illness or injury.

If the person in question then appears to undergo an unexpected recovery it can be classed as a miracle by the Vatican. If two miracles are attributed to a deceased person and approved by the pope, then they qualify for sainthood.

Acutis was put on the path towards sainthood after Pope Francis approved a miracle attributed to him: a seven-year-old boy from Brazil recovered from a rare pancreatic disorder after coming into contact with one of Acutis’s T-shirts. A priest had also prayed to Acutis on behalf of the child.

The Catholic church’s dedicated unit for looking into the validity of miracles, called the Medical Council of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, have now investigated claims that a Costa Rican woman enjoyed a miraculous recovery after a bicycle accident in Florence in 2022.

Valeria Valverde, 21, underwent an emergency craniotomy to reduce pressure on her brain and her family was told she was in a critical condition, it was reported.

Her mother went to pray for her daughter’s recovery at the tomb of Acutis in the Umbrian town of Assisi six days later.

The church said that on the same day, Valverde began to breathe without a ventilator and recovered the use of her upper limbs and her speech.

She was discharged from intensive care 10 days later and scans showed that the contusion on her brain had disappeared, according to reports.

https://uk.yahoo.com/style/london-bo...214536585.html

[Soldier Boy]

I mean... Yes, it's a lovely tale, but... People don't half convince themselves of some barmy nonsense when it comes to religion .

[Mystic Mock]

Originally Posted by Soldier Boy

I mean... Yes, it's a lovely tale, but... People don't half convince themselves of some barmy nonsense when it comes to religion .

Tbf in these scenarios I wouldn't begrudge people what they feel comfortable believing.

I mean loved ones lives were in critical danger, so these people aren't (understandably) in the right head space right now.

[Ammi]

Originally Posted by Soldier Boy

I mean... Yes, it's a lovely tale, but... People don't half convince themselves of some barmy nonsense when it comes to religion .

…as a Catholic, my own belief system was always that I loved any saint that gave us a day off school…the rest…hmmmmm, not so fussed with…/…very overrated….

[MTVN]

Well miracles do happen as in things that defy any realistic probability or cannot be readily explained. Of course the number of times people's hopes and prayers are disappointed far outweigh them.

I love the stories of saints but they're often very tragic. Many of them died very young like this poor chap.

[LeatherTrumpet]

Well Birmingham FC play at Saint Andrew's and they needed a miracle this season and they did not get it

Stick that in yer cassock Popey

[Ammi]

…in his actions in thought for others, Carlo Acutis is someone who certainly seems to have shone very brightly and very beautifully in his short lifetime…and with his devotion to Catholicism, this is something that his family will feel so much joy with…I don’t know how it would feel to have a child officially declared ‘a saint’…so many media stories that are so dark and negative in terms of parental responsibility etc…this though, being the other extreme and such a rare thing for sainthood to be declared or allocated or awarded etc in modern times…

[arista]

Sad
he died so young.

[parmnion]

Originally Posted by Soldier Boy

I mean... Yes, it's a lovely tale, but... People don't half convince themselves of some barmy nonsense when it comes to religion .

The big bang theory and the miraculous alignment of earth, the moon and the sun being in the exact places and rotations that they need to be for us to exist and survive has a much higher odds percentage of being possible than the creation of earth by god has.