Pope Leo XIV will canonize Blessed Carlo Acutis and Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati on September 7.Pope Leo XIV will canonize Blessed Carlo Acutis and Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati on September 7 as the first new saints declared in his pontificate. And the miracles attributed to their intercessions include the healing of a young woman who suffered near-fatal head injuries after a bicycle accident and a seminarian injured while playing basketball.
Pope Francis recognized in May of 2024 the miracle attributed to the intercession of Blessed Carlo Acutis, paving the way for him to become the first millennial saint.
The Italian computer-coding teenager who died of cancer in 2006 is known for his great devotion to the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.
In the decree, the late pope approved the miraculous healing of a 21-year-old girl from Costa Rica named Valeria Valverde, who was near death after seriously injuring her head in a bicycle accident while studying in Florence in 2022.
After the girl underwent an emergency craniotomy to reduce intracranial pressure, the family was told that her situation was very critical and that she could die at any moment, according to the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints.
Six days after the accident, Valeria’s mother went on a pilgrimage to Assisi to pray for the healing of her daughter at the tomb of Blessed Carlo Acutis, leaving a written note.
On that same day, Valeria began to breathe on her own and on the following day she recovered the use of her upper limbs and partly recovered her speech.
Valeria was discharged from the intensive care unit 10 days after her mother’s pilgrimage and underwent further tests that showed the hemorrhagic right temporal cortical contusion in her brain had completely disappeared.
Valeria spent only one week in physical therapy and on Sept. 2, 2022, two months after her accident, she went on a pilgrimage to Carlo Acutis’ tomb in Assisi with her mother to celebrate her complete healing.
In November 2024, Pope Francis recognized a miracle attributed to the intercession of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati – the healing of a seminarian of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles who was ordained a priest in June 2023.
Father Juan Gutierrez, 38, then a seminarian at St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo, California, tore his Achilles tendon while playing basketball with other seminarians in 2017.
Concerned about the long and painful recovery and expenses, Gutierrez headed for the seminary chapel the day after getting an MRI “with a heavy heart.”
As he prayed, Gutierrez felt inspired to make a novena to Frassati. A few days into the novena, he went into the chapel to pray when nobody was there. As he prayed, he recalled feeling an unusual sensation around his injured foot.
“I was praying, and I started to feel a sensation of heat around the area of my injury. And I honestly thought that maybe something was catching on fire, underneath the pews,” Father Gutierrez recalled at a press conference in December at St. John the Baptist Parish in Los Angeles County, where he now serves as an associate pastor.
He remembered from his experiences with the charismatic renewal movement that heat can be associated with healing from God. He found himself gazing at the tabernacle, weeping.
“That event touched me deeply,” Father Gutierrez recalled.
He was not only touched spiritually, but he was also healed physically. Incredibly, he was able to walk normally again and no longer needed a brace.
Msgr. Robert Sarno, a former official of the Vatican Dicastery for the Causes of Saints who served as the archiepiscopal delegate in the diocesan process in Los Angeles that examined the healing, told CNA that when Gutierrez went to the orthopedic surgeon a week later, “the orthopedic surgeon, after seeing the MRI and conducting physical investigations, said to him, ‘You must have someone in heaven who likes you.’”
Gutierrez was able to immediately resume playing the sports that he loved without any difficulties. The healing was verified by a diocesan inquiry and the examination of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints’ medical board, theologians, and the cardinals and bishops.
Msgr. Sarno noted that it is fitting that a young man playing basketball received the healing given that Frassati was known for his love of sports and outdoor activities.
For Father Gutierrez, his healing is a reminder “that prayer works.”
“The saints can help us to pray for our needs and that there is somebody listening to our prayers,” he said. “God is always listening to our prayers.”
(CNA photo/public domain.)
By Courtney Mares and Kate Quiñones, Catholic News Agency
