Carlo Acutis

In many ways, Carlo Acutis was a typical teenager. He loved his PlayStation and making videos of his dogs. He favored Nikes and jeans, and he had a cellphone and an email address.

But in one significant respect, Carlo — who was just 15 when he died of leukemia in 2006 — stands out from his peers: He is on his way to becoming the first millennial to be recognized as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church.

Carlo, who lived in Milan, was beatified, or declared “blessed” by the pope, on Saturday after a miracle was attributed to him earlier this year. The ceremony, in Assisi, Italy, was the second-to-last step before Carlo can be canonized as a saint.

Since his death, Carlo has become known in some Catholic circles as the patron saint of the internet for his facility with computers and his early and enthusiastic embrace of the web, which he used as an expression of his Catholic faith.

“Carlo was the light answer to the dark side of the web,” his mother said, adding that some admirers have called him an “influencer for God.”

Ms. Acutis said that people from all over the world had told her about medical miracles, including cures for infertility and cancer, that happened after they prayed to her son. In February, Pope Francis attributed the unexplainable healing of a boy with a malformed pancreas to Carlo after the child came in contact with one of his shirts.

Carlo sought ways of helping poor, older and disabled people, and refugees. On the way to school, he would stop to chat with people about their problems, she said. He took meals and sleeping bags to homeless people and knew many by name.