Young saints

Young saints show us that holiness doesn't wait for old age. Some of them were children when they died for Christ; some were teenagers who loved God in ordinary schoolboy and schoolgirl lives; some were young adults who packed a lifetime of charity into twenty-odd years. Here are twenty of them, with the age each one reached and the day the Church keeps their feast.

Young saints at a glance

• St. Jacinta Marto: died at 9, 1920; feast February 20
• St. Francisco Marto: died at 10, 1919; feast April 4
• St. Maria Goretti: died at 11, 1902; feast July 6
• Blessed Laura Vicuña: died at 12, 1904; feast January 22
• St. Agnes: died at 12 or 13, about 304; feast January 21
• St. Tarcisius: died a boy, about 257; feast August 15
• St. Dominic Savio: died at 14, 1857; feast May 6 (Salesians)
• St. José Sánchez del Río: died at 14, 1928; feast February 10
• St. Kizito: died at about 14, 1886; feast June 3
• St. Carlo Acutis: died at 15, 2006; feast October 12
• St. Stanislaus Kostka: died at 17, 1568; feast November 13
• St. Pedro Calungsod: died at about 17, 1672; feast April 2
• Blessed Chiara Badano: died at 18, 1990; feast October 29
• St. Joan of Arc: died at about 19, 1431; feast May 30
• St. Teresa of the Andes: died at 19, 1920; feast July 13 (Chile)
• St. Aloysius Gonzaga: died at 23, 1591; feast June 21
• St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows: died at 23, 1862; feast February 27
• St. Thérèse of Lisieux: died at 24, 1897; feast October 1
• St. Kateri Tekakwitha: died at about 24, 1680; feast July 14 (US)
• St. Pier Giorgio Frassati: died at 24, 1925; feast July 4

The child martyrs of the early Church

St. Agnes (about 291 to about 304)

St. Agnes is the young saint the Church has loved longest. She was a Roman girl of 12 or 13 who refused marriage because she had given herself to Christ, and was put to death for the faith, most likely under Diocletian. St. Ambrose, Pope Damasus and the poet Prudentius all wrote of her within a century, and her name is spoken in the Roman Canon of the Mass. Her emblem is a lamb, because her name sounds like the Latin agnus. We keep her feast on January 21.

St. Tarcisius (died about 257)

St. Tarcisius was a boy, probably an acolyte, who was carrying the Eucharist to Christians in prison during the persecution of Valerian. When a gang of pagan youths tried to take what he held, he would not let go, and they beat him to death. Pope St. Damasus carved an epitaph on his grave in the Catacomb of St. Callixtus, the oldest witness to his story. The dialogue often told about him comes from later retellings. Benedict XVI, speaking to thousands of altar servers in 2010, repeated the beautiful tradition that no Host was found on his body, because "the consecrated Host which the little Martyr had defended with his life, had become flesh of his flesh." He is the patron of altar servers and first communicants. His feast is August 15.

Martyrs of modern times

St. Kizito (about 1872 to 1886)

Kizito was the youngest of the Uganda Martyrs, a page at the court of King Mwanga. On the night before the pages were condemned, St. Charles Lwanga secretly baptized him with the other catechumens. He was about 14 when he died on the pyre at Namugongo on June 3, 1886, the day the Church keeps the feast of all the Uganda Martyrs.

St. Pedro Calungsod (about 1654 to 1672)

Pedro was a Filipino teenager from the Visayas who trained as a catechist with the Jesuits and went with Fr. Diego Luis de San Vitores to the Mariana Islands. Benedict XVI, canonizing him in 2012, said that "Pedro, however, displayed deep faith and charity" amid persecution. He was killed with Fr. Diego on April 2, 1672, at about 17. He is the second Filipino saint, after St. Lorenzo Ruiz.

St. Maria Goretti (1890 to 1902)

St. Maria Goretti was an 11-year-old farm girl near Nettuno who resisted an attempted rape by a young neighbor, Alessandro Serenelli, and died of her wounds the next day, after forgiving him. Serenelli later repented and was present at her canonization in 1950. She is a patron of teenage girls, chastity and forgiveness. Feast: July 6.

St. José Sánchez del Río (1913 to 1928)

St. José Sánchez del Río was a boy from Sahuayo, Michoacán, who joined the Cristeros during the persecution of the Church in Mexico. Captured and tortured, he refused to deny his faith and was killed on February 10, 1928, at 14, crying "¡Viva Cristo Rey!" Pope Francis canonized him in 2016.

Children and teenagers who lived holy lives

Sts. Francisco (1908 to 1919) and Jacinta Marto (1910 to 1920)

Francisco and Jacinta Marto were two of the three shepherd children who saw Our Lady of Fátima in 1917. Both died in the influenza epidemic that followed the First World War: Francisco on April 4, 1919, at 10, and Jacinta on February 20, 1920, at 9, after offering their sufferings for sinners. Pope Francis canonized them at Fátima on May 13, 2017, the hundredth anniversary of the first apparition, making them the youngest saints ever canonized who were not martyrs. He spoke of "their insistent prayers for sinners and their desire to remain ever near 'the hidden Jesus' in the tabernacle." Their feasts are kept on the days they died, April 4 and February 20.

Blessed Laura Vicuña (1891 to 1904)

Laura Vicuña was born in Santiago, Chile, on April 5, 1891, lost her father at two, and moved with her mother to Argentina, where she went to school with the Salesian sisters. Her mother was living with a rancher outside of marriage, and when the man made violent advances on Laura she resisted him with great courage. She offered her life to God for her mother's conversion, as the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints records, and her motto echoed Dominic Savio's: "death, but not sins." She died on January 22, 1904, at 12, and St. John Paul II beatified her on September 3, 1988. Her body rests in the chapel of the Salesian sisters at Bahía Blanca, Argentina.

St. Dominic Savio (1842 to 1857)

St. Dominic Savio was a pupil of St. John Bosco at the Oratory in Turin. On his First Communion day, at seven, he wrote his resolution: "Death rather than sin." His holiness was in small things: keeping the peace in the schoolyard, caring for sick classmates, loving the Blessed Sacrament. He died at home just before his fifteenth birthday. Bosco wrote his life, and Pius XII canonized him in 1954, then the youngest non-martyr saint. The Salesians keep his feast on May 6.

St. Carlo Acutis (1991 to 2006)

St. Carlo Acutis was a Milan teenager who loved computers, soccer, his dogs and above all the Eucharist, which he called "my highway to heaven." He put his computer skills to work building a website on the Eucharistic miracles of the world. He died of leukemia on October 12, 2006, at 15, and rests in Assisi. Pope Leo XIV canonized him on September 7, 2025, the first saint of the millennial generation. Feast: October 12.

Blessed Chiara Badano (1971 to 1990)

Chiara "Luce" Badano, a member of the Focolare Movement from Sassello in northern Italy, was a sporty, popular 17-year-old when a pain in her shoulder during a tennis game turned out to be bone cancer. After her first operation she said, "If you want it, Jesus, so do I." She lost the use of her legs and her hair, and offered it all. She died on October 7, 1990, a few weeks before her nineteenth birthday. Benedict XVI recalled her last words the day after her beatification in 2010: "Bye Mum. Be happy because I am." Her memorial is October 29.

Young men and women who gave everything

St. Stanislaus Kostka (1550 to 1568)

St. Stanislaus Kostka, son of a Polish noble, ran away from school in Vienna and walked hundreds of miles to be received into the Jesuits, first in Bavaria and then in Rome. He died ten months into his novitiate, at 17, on the feast of the Assumption. Feast: November 13.

St. Joan of Arc (about 1412 to 1431)

St. Joan of Arc was a peasant girl from Domrémy who, obeying the voices she heard, led the armies of France at 17 and was burned at Rouen at about 19. She was canonized in 1920. Feast: May 30.

St. Teresa of the Andes (1900 to 1920)

Juana Fernández Solar of Santiago entered the Discalced Carmelites at Los Andes in May 1919. She caught typhus within the year, made her religious profession in danger of death, and died on April 12, 1920, "three months short of her 20th birthday," as her Vatican biography says. Canonized in 1993, she is the first saint of Chile. Her feast is kept on July 13 in Chile; the Roman Martyrology lists her on April 12.

St. Aloysius Gonzaga (1568 to 1591)

St. Aloysius Gonzaga gave up the title of his princely family to become a Jesuit. As a student in Rome he carried plague victims to the hospital in the epidemic of 1591, caught the disease and died at 23. He and Stanislaus were canonized together in 1726 and are the classic patrons of young people. Feast: June 21.

St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows (1838 to 1862)

Francesco Possenti was a cheerful, fashionable young man from Spoleto, fond of dancing and the theater, who entered the Passionists at 18 as St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows. He died of tuberculosis at 23, before he could be ordained. He is a patron of students and young people. Feast: February 27.

St. Thérèse of Lisieux (1873 to 1897)

St. Thérèse of Lisieux entered the Carmel at 15 with special permission and died there of tuberculosis at 24. Her "little way" of trust and love in small things made her a Doctor of the Church. Feast: October 1.

St. Kateri Tekakwitha (1656 to 1680)

St. Kateri Tekakwitha, the Lily of the Mohawks, was baptized at 20 against the will of her village and died at the mission near Montreal at about 24. She is the first Native American saint. Her feast is July 14 in the United States and April 17 in Canada.

St. Pier Giorgio Frassati (1901 to 1925)

St. Pier Giorgio Frassati was the son of a powerful Turin family, a mountaineer, a student of mining engineering and a quiet servant of the poor in the city's slums. He caught polio, probably from the people he visited, and died in six days at 24. Thousands of the poor came to his funeral, to his family's amazement. On his last climbing photograph he wrote Verso l'alto, "Upwards." He was canonized with Carlo Acutis on September 7, 2025. Feast: July 4.

Praying with the young saints

These saints were not born saints, and none of them were plaster figures. Gabriel Possenti loved parties and the theater, Pier Giorgio was a practical joker who died two exams short of his degree, Carlo Acutis loved video games, and Thérèse was, by her own account, a painfully sensitive girl who cried at the smallest thing. What made them saints is what makes any saint: they let God's love take over their lives, and most of them did it quickly.

They are good companions for young people today, and for parents praying for children. Let us ask St. Maria Goretti to protect the purity of our young people, St. Carlo Acutis to draw them to the Eucharist, and St. Pier Giorgio to lead them verso l'alto. Many of these saints are good choices for a Confirmation name; see our list of Confirmation saints. For more lists, see famous saints, female saints and what a martyr is, and for how causes like these move from a local reputation to canonization, see how to become a saint.