Holy Smoke: why the canonisation of the first millennial saint is a cause to celebrate
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The Spectator
4.4 • 785 Ratings
🗓️ 7 September 2025
⏱️ 40 minutes
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Summary
The Catholic Church will acquire its first millennial saint today, when Pope Leo XIV canonises someone who, if he were alive today, would be young enough to be his son.
Carlo Acutis, a ‘computer geek’ from a prosperous Italian family, died aged just 15 in 2006. In this episode of Holy Smoke, Damian Thompson talks to Mgr Anthony Figueiredo and the Italian-based journalist Nicholas Farrell about the extraordinary phenomenon of St Carlo, the miracles associated with him – and the scepticism they arouse – and a mean-spirited attack on him by one of the late Pope Francis’s closest advisers.
Produced by Patrick Gibbons.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Michael Gove. |
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| 0:32.0 | That's quite right. |
| 0:33.2 | From The Spectator, out now. |
| 0:50.9 | Welcome to Holy Smoke, the Spectators of Religion podcast. |
| 0:52.9 | I'm Damien Thompson. |
| 1:09.0 | On Sunday, Pope Leo XIV will canonise Carlo Akutis, a 15-year-old computer geek who died in 2006, |
| 1:15.9 | whose exceptional piety has been recognised by the church, along with two miracles ascribed to him, and who will join the calendar of saints. It's an extraordinary thing |
| 1:22.3 | that has generated huge excitement in the Catholic Church, the first millennial saint, after whom several Catholic |
| 1:30.1 | schools around the world have been named, an enormously popular figure who has regenerated |
| 1:36.1 | popular piety, especially in Italy, but whose early canonization has at the same time attracted |
| 1:43.9 | a certain amount of criticism from both |
| 1:46.3 | the left and the right of the Catholic world. It's a fascinating event, a real course of |
| 1:52.8 | celebration for Catholics, and I am joined today by Monsignor Anthony Figuero, a priest who's worked in the Vatican Curia, who's been responsible for the transfer of Blessed Carlos' relics around the world, |
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