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The Audio Long Read

Inside the Vatican’s secret saint-making process

The Audio Long Read

The Guardian

Society & Culture

4.32.4K Ratings

🗓️ 17 January 2025

⏱️ 36 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Canonisation has long been a way for the Catholic church to shape its image. The Vatican is preparing to anoint its first millennial saint, but how does it decide who is worthy? By Linda Kinstler. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

Transcript

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0:00.0

This is The Guardian.

0:09.4

As you're listening to me, Daisy, Apple's iPhone disassembly robot, is dismantling an iPhone

0:15.0

into lots of recyclable parts.

0:18.0

That's how Apple recovers more materials than conventional recycling methods.

0:21.6

Thanks Daisy. There's more to iPhone.

0:24.6

Welcome to The Guardian Long Read, showcasing the best long-form journalism covering culture, politics and new thinking.

0:38.7

For the text version of this and all our long reads, go to the Guardian.com forward slash

0:43.1

long read.

0:46.7

Inside the Vatican's secret saint-making process by Linda Kinsler.

0:54.0

As a child growing up in Milan,

0:56.8

Carlo Acutis collected stories of miracles.

1:00.6

He wrote about the time when in 1411,

1:03.3

wine turned to blood in a castle chapel in Ludbrecht, Croatia.

1:07.8

Of how in 1630, a pastor in Canosio, Italy, saved his town from a flood by blessing the raging

1:15.2

waters. Of how in 1906, a priest on the island of Tomako, Colombia, held up a reliquary on the

1:23.0

beach to stop an approaching tsunami. Acutis, 11 years old and a devout Catholic, began typing up

1:30.7

these stories and posting them on his website, which he styled as a virtual museum of miraculous

1:36.5

events. A section on the site invited visitors to discover how many friends you have in heaven

1:43.1

and to read stories of young saints.

1:46.0

Acutus hoped to one day join their ranks.

1:51.0

He was convinced that he would die before he reached adulthood

1:54.0

and told his mother Antonia that he would perish of a broken vein in his brain.

...

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