Maltese teens lead digital prayer wave as 15-year-old gamer set to become first millennial saint

Catholic teen set to become first millennial saint: How Carlo Acutis is already inspiring Maltese youth

The pews of the Oratory of St Francis in Birkirkara were unusually packed last Sunday—not for a wedding or First Communion, but for a special Mass celebrated by Maltese teenagers who had just returned from a week-long pilgrimage to Assisi. Their focus? Carlo Acutis, the 15-year-old Italian “digital apostle” who will be canonised next year and become the first millennial saint. While the ceremony will take place in Rome, the ripple effects are already washing up on Maltese shores, and local youth ministers say the island is experiencing its own mini-revival.

Carlo’s story reads like a modern parable. Born in London in 1991 to Italian parents, he moved to Milan as a child and taught himself HTML so he could build a website documenting Eucharistic miracles. He played video games—Super Mario was his favourite—but rationed his screen time so it never eclipsed prayer. Diagnosed with leukaemia in 2006, he offered his sufferings “for the Pope and the Church” and died within a week. Last month, Pope Francis approved a second miracle attributed to his intercession, clearing the final hurdle to sainthood.

For Malta—where 98 % of secondary-school students still sit for Religious Knowledge O-levels—Carlo’s tech-savvy piety strikes a chord. “He speaks TikTok in a language our kids understand,” laughs Fr Gabriel Micallef, chaplain at St Aloysius College. “We’ve added ‘Carlo Challenges’ to our youth-group WhatsApp chats: one week they log off Instagram for 48 hours and donate the time to charity, another week they research a Marian apparition and post a 60-second reel about it.”

Fr Micallef isn’t the only cleric riding the Carlo wave. The Malta Catholic Youth Network (MCYN) reports that sign-ups for its summer “Generation Z Retreat” have doubled since the Vatican announced the canonisation date. The retreat, held at the Mount St Joseph retreat house in Mosta, now includes a session titled “Coding for Christ,” where participants design simple web pages about local shrines. “We had to ask the De La Salle brothers for extra bandwidth,” says MCYN coordinator Maria Pace, grinning. “The Wi-Fi usually dies at 20 teens, but 42 showed up last Saturday.”

Local businesses are sensing opportunity, too. Valletta bookshop Agenda has already sold out its first order of “Carlo wristbands”—silicone bands printed with “Jesus is my algorithm” in Maltese and English. Meanwhile, Gżira start-up PrayApp is beta-testing a feature that sends daily Carlo quotes at 3 p.m., the hour he died. Even the Malta Tourism Authority is exploring a “Digital Saints Trail” linking parishes with free Wi-Fi hotspots and QR-coded plaques explaining Eucharistic miracles.

Yet the Carlo phenomenon isn’t just about gadgets and merch; it’s re-energising traditional devotion. At the Ta’ Pinu basilica, youth minister Karl Borg has revived the long-dormant “Notte Bianca” vigil, where teens keep adoration from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. “We expected maybe 30 kids,” Borg admits. “We got 110, armed with sleeping bags and power banks—one even brought a portable projector to screen Carlo’s beatification on the church wall.”

Older parishioners, initially wary of smartphones glowing in pews, have warmed to the idea. “My nanna used to say the Oratory was for bingo, not broadband,” jokes 17-year-old Martina Zahra from Mosta. “Now she forwards me Carlo memes on Messenger.”

Canonisation day itself—expected in April 2025—will see Maltese dioceses host parallel celebrations. Archbishop Charles Scicluna has confirmed a national youth Mass at the Floriana granaries, with simultaneous live-streaming in every parish hall. “Carlo reminds us that holiness isn’t confined to medieval cloisters,” Scicluna told Times of Malta. “It can bloom in bedrooms lit only by laptop screens.”

For a generation raised between rosaries and routers, that message is pure gospel. And if the queues at confessionals after last Sunday’s Mass are any indication, Malta’s millennials—and their younger siblings—are ready to swipe right on sainthood.