The young wizard of Italian technology will be beatified in October

ROME - Carlo Acutis, a 15-year-old Italian teenager who used his computer programming skills to spread devotion to the Eucharist, will be beatified in October, announced the diocese of Assisi.

Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, will preside over the beatification ceremony on October 10, which "is a joy that we have been waiting for for a long time", said Archbishop Domenico Sorrentino of Assisi.

The announcement of the beatification of Acutis in the Basilica of San Francesco "is a ray of light during this period in our country where we are struggling to emerge from a difficult health, social and work situation," said the archbishop.

"In recent months, we have faced loneliness and estrangement by experiencing the most positive aspect of the Internet, a communication technology for which Carlos had a special talent," added Sorrentino.

Prior to his death from leukemia in 2006, Acutis was an average teenager with an above-average talent for computers. He put his knowledge to good use by creating an online database of Eucharistic miracles worldwide.

In his exhortation on young people, "Christus Vivit" ("Christ Lives"), Pope Francis said that Acutis was a model for today's young people who are often tempted by the traps of "self-absorption, isolation and empty pleasure".

"Carlo was well aware that the entire communication, advertising and social network apparatus can be used to lull us, make us dependent on consumerism and buy the latest news on the market, obsessed with our free time, taken by negativity," he wrote dad.

"Yet he has been able to use the new communication technology to transmit the Gospel, to communicate values ​​and beauty," he said.