Carlo Acutis: 7 youngest saints from history
The late teenager Carlo Acutis has been hailed as the first millennial saint. However, believers even younger have also been canonised by the Catholic Church.
Image: Carlo Acutis was canonised on 7th September 2025 | Marco Iacobucci Epp / Shutterstock.com
In September 2025, the late teenager Carlo Acutis was canonised by Pope Leo XIV at a well-attended ceremony. It made Acutis, born in 1991, the first millennial saint.
Acutis was aged just 15 when he died of leukaemia in 2006. He joins a long list of teenagers granted sainthood by the Catholic Church.
Even some preteens are said to have received this honour. Admittedly, the historicity of some recorded saints is in dispute. In any case, read on to discover Sky HISTORY’s rundown of the 10 youngest Catholic saints widely believed to have actually existed.
1. St Kizito
Kizito was a committed Catholic in a country where Christianity was more than frowned upon. He was born around 1872 in Uganda, where he later became a page for King Mwanga II.
Unfortunately, this heightened profile left him an obvious target for persecution. Kizito was the youngest member of the Ugandan Martyrs, a Christian group executed in the 1880s. He is thought to have been killed in his early teens.
The Ugandan Martyrs were all canonised by Pope Paul VI in 1964. Today, Kizito is reputed as the patron saint of children and primary schools.
2. St Philomena
In May 1802, a purported martyr’s remains were discovered at Rome’s catacombs. The corpse appeared to be that of a girl who died around the age of 13.
The grave was marked with the name ‘Philomena’, but who was she? Maria Luisa di Gesù claimed to have received a vision where Philomena told her story.
According to this account, Philomena was the daughter of a Greek king who sought to strike a peace deal with Roman emperor Diocletian. The latter soon met Philomena and fell in love with her, but she spurned his marriage proposal.
Diocletian is said to have reacted violently, eventually having Philomena decapitated. Miracles reportedly occurred after her bones were exhumed, leading her to be canonised in 1837.
3. The Child Martyrs of Tlaxcala
In the late 1520s, three Catholic boys were murdered in the Mexican area of Tlaxcala. Cristóbel had abandoned the native faith in favor of Catholicism, drawing the ire of his chieftain father, who burned his son to death in 1527.
Antonio and Juan had also converted to Catholicism. They were murdered in 1529 after being caught desecrating effigies of indigenous gods. All three boys (aged 12 and 13 when they died) were canonised in 2017.
4. St Francisco Marto and St Jacinta Marto
The Portuguese brother-and-sister duo Francisco and Jacinta reported being visited by apparitions of an angel and the Virgin Mary during the First World War. These visions strengthened the siblings’ commitment to holiness in their day-to-day lives.
Both children later died of flu (Francisco in 1919, Jacinta in 1920) and they were canonised in 2017.
5. St Dominic Savio
Dominic Savio was born in Italy on 2nd April 1842 and lived an extremely pious life of regular prayer. He was encouraged in these habits by mentor John Bosco.
Savio was aged only 14 when he died of lung disease in 1857. Bosch wrote The Life of Dominic Savio, which praised the boy’s deep, self-sacrificing devotion to the Catholic faith. This biographical text is thought to have contributed to the decision to canonise Savio in 1954.
6. St José Luis Sánchez del Río
José Luis Sánchez del Río was born on 28th March 1913 in Mexico, where the government later launched a crackdown on religious freedom. As a result, the Cristero War broke out in the late 1920s and the resolutely Catholic José joined in with the fighting.
After José was captured in 1928, the government threatened to execute him if he did not renounce his Christian faith. The boy, aged just 14 at the time, refused. He paid with his life.
José was canonised in 2016, after a Mexican baby’s inexplicable medical recovery in the late Noughties was attributed to José’s intercession.
7. St Carlo Acutis
In the modern age, key to Carlo Acutis’s story is his relatability. With his love of videogames, filming home videos and nibbling on Nutella, his life was very much that of a typical 21st-century teenager.
He was also a dab hand at creating websites. His skills in leveraging online marketing to spread the message of the Catholic faith led him to be dubbed ‘God’s influencer’.
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