Post date: Oct 21, 2012 1:11:46 PM
Pope names seven new saints including the first Native American, entrusting Saint Kateri to renew faith in all of North America.
VATICAN CITY (OCTOBER 21, 2012) (CTV) - Pope Benedict XVI named seven new saints on Sunday (October 21) including the first Native American - Saint Kateri Tekakwitha.
The canonisation of the seven new saints marks the beginning of the "Year of Faith" for the Vatican, aimed at overcoming a rise in secularism in the West.Saint Kateri, informally referred to as "Lily of the Mohawks", lived in what is now the border between the United States and Canada. She is worshipped by followers of native religions as well as Catholics.
Speaking to a huge crowd in brilliant sunshine in St. Peter's Square, Pope Benedict said:
"Kateri Tekakwitha was born in today's New York state in 1656 to a Mohawk father and a Christian Algonquin mother who gave to her a sense of the living God. She was baptised at 20-years of age and, to escape persecution, she took refuge in Saint Francis Xavier Mission near Montreal."
"Saint Kateri, Protectress of Canada and the first native American saint, we entrust to you the renewal of the faith in the first nations and in all of North America. May God bless the first nations."
After surviving smallpox and being orphaned, Tekakwitha earned a following for her deep spiritualism before dying at the age of just 24, in 1680.
Another woman named a Saint on Sunday was Marianne Cope, a German migrant to theUnited States who took care of lepers.
"I now turn to Marianne Cope, born in 1838 in Heppenheim, Germany. Only one year old when taken to the United States, Mother Marianne willingly embraced a call to care for the lepers of Hawaii after many others had refused," said the Pope.
Other new saints were a French missionary to Madagascar, Father Jacques Berthieu, a Philippine seminarian martyred at the age of 17 on Guam, Peter Calungsod, Italian priest Giovanni Battista Piamarta, who in the late 19th century devoted his life to helping young people during the industrial revolution, a Spanish nun who campaigned for women's rights, Maria del Monte Carmelo Salles y Barangueras, and Anna Schaefferfrom Germany.
"Anna Schaeffer, from Mindelstetten, as a young woman wished to enter a missionary order. She came from a poor background so, in order to earn the dowry needed for acceptance into the cloister, she worked as a maid," said Pope Benedict.
Schaeffer was badly burnt after falling into boiling water and spent the rest of her life bedridden. She is credited with spreading the word of God in local villages.
The choice of the saints have been linked to the Roman Catholic Church's efforts to highlight the need for a "new evangelisation", as church pews empty in Europe and theUnited States.
With the new canonisations the number of saints named by the Pope since the beginning of his pontificating in 2005 totals 44.
The saints have been named during a Synod of Bishops of bishops. This year's conference marks the 50th anniversary of the landmark Council, which attempted to bring the Church up to date with the modern world.