The cause for the sainthood of Akash Bashir is proceeding quickly: he saved the Lahore community by . The canonization of Carlo Acutis opens a window on millennial saints.

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One week after the canonization of the young Carlo Acutis, the name of his almost contemporary Akash Bashir resonates again strongly.

If Carlo was the first saint of the millennial generation, Bashir could be on the path to becoming the second.

 

The Biography of Akash Bashir and Martyrdom in Pakistan

Born in 1994 in Pakistan, in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region, he lived in Lahore, where he studied at the Don Bosco Technical Institute.

On March 15, 2015, at the age of 21, he was performing volunteer service as a security guard at the Church of St. John in Youhanabad, a district of Lahore, while the Catholic community celebrated Mass inside.

We have already recounted what happened that day: he identified a terrorist loaded with explosives intent on entering, threw himself against him to hold him outside, and even tried to reason with him, but in vain.

Eyewitnesses heard Bashir say this phrase: «I will die, but I will not let you enter this church».

 

He died with the bomber and saved the community

The suicide bomber decided to detonate outside anyway, taking his life and also taking young Akash’s. The explosion still killed another 14 people, but the dozens of faithful inside the church were saved. The group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Jamaatul Ahrar later claimed responsibility for the attack.

A heroic act, impossible even to imagine, which for this reason went around the world, reaching the Vatican immediately.

From a canonical point of view, since then the Pakistani Church has taken decisive steps: the cause for beatification and canonization was officially opened, Akash was declared a “Servant of God” in 2022, and the diocesan process concluded in March 2024, with the authenticated acts sent to the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints in Rome.

 

From Carlo Acutis to Akash Bashir: Millennial Saints

The similarities with Carlo Acutis are not limited to their young age but also to the fact that both, despite their biographical differences, were authors of a radical and decisive testimony to the Christian mystery.

Carlo, regardless of what meticulous theologian critics say, testified to an experiential love for faith and the Eucharist, as written by Father Maurizio Buioni.

The same testimony is found in Akash who, with a tremendous act of affection, made tangible the logic of total self-giving, even to the point of ultimate sacrifice.

Naturally, Akash is not yet beatified or canonized. But the process is moving quickly, so much so that a few months ago Vatican News reported that the beatification cause of the young Pakistani is proceeding at a rapid pace.

And the growing attention to his case—especially now, after the canonization of Acutis—suggests that especially in Pakistan many faithful already consider him a sign, a living hope for Catholics living as a minority, in a context where deciding every day to adhere to Christ rather than the world entails a real danger to one’s life and a life defined by daily persecution.

The canonization of Carlo Acutis may have opened a window, inaugurating a new generation of potential millennial saints.