In a see-through safe carved into a wall behind the altar of a chapel in northern Rome lies a collection of relics of Carlo Acutis. These include a splinter from his wooden bed, a fragment of a jumper and a piece of the sheet used to cover him after his death. Locks of his hair are on display in other churches in the Italian capital and beyond.<\/p>\n
Acutis, the London-born Italian who on Sunday will become the Catholic church\u2019s first millennial saint, built websites to spread Catholic teaching, earning him the nickname \u201cGod\u2019s Influencer\u201d after his death, aged 15, from leukaemia.<\/p>\n
Shrines such as this form part of an ancient ritual bestowed upon the church\u2019s highest-ranking dead and will provide believers with tangible reminders of his life. Minuscule though the relics at Sant\u2019Angela Merici are, Danilo Spagnoletti, the parish priest, believes they help instil courage in pilgrims.<\/p>\n
\u201cPraying close to a saint\u2019s remains helps them to face difficulties in life,\u201d he said. \u201cIn particular, this saint, who had a short life but was far advanced in many ways, is a source of inspiration for young people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Acutis, who died in 2006, will be canonised by Pope Leo<\/a> alongside Pier Giorgio Frassati, another young Catholic activist who died a century ago. The event is expected to bring thousands of people to Rome.<\/p>\n The church categorises relics of its saints into first, second and third class. Those at Sant\u2019Angela Merici fall into the latter two, and while the items attract a steady flow of pilgrims, it is the first-class relics \u2013 a saint\u2019s body and its parts \u2013 that pull in the crowds.<\/p>\n Over the past year, more than 1 million people have flocked to the central Italian town of Assisi, where Acutis\u2019s body \u2013 covered in a wax mould of his likeness and dressed in his blue tracksuit top, jeans and trainers \u2013 is on view behind a glass-panelled case in Santa Maria Maggiore church. His heart is in a gold casket in the town\u2019s San Rufino cathedral, while pieces of tissue from his pericardium \u2013 the membrane enclosing the heart \u2013 have toured the world in the lead-up to his canonisation.<\/p>\n His mother, Antonia Salzano, has also travelled across the globe, delivering speeches to Catholic communities about her son\u2019s life, bringing strands of her son\u2019s hair as gifts.<\/p>\n The relics have been donated by his family, although once he is canonised they will become the possession of the Vatican<\/a>.<\/p>\n Acutis was born in London, where his father worked in insurance, before the family moved to Milan when he was four months old.<\/p>\n The family was not necessarily religious, Salzano told the Guardian, but her son showed a deep devotion to the Catholic faith from a young age.<\/p>\n \u201cHe would go to mass and do the rosary each day,\u201d she said, adding that he was a child who \u201ccould not be indifferent to sorrow\u201d. \u201cWe lived in the centre of Milan in a building surrounded by beggars. He wanted to help them, speak to them, bring them food and blankets.\u201d<\/p>\n