A Mohawk woman who lived in the 1600s was bestowed the highest honour of the Catholic Church yesterday.
Kateri Tekakwitha was declared a Saint by Pope Benedict XVI in a canonization in Vatican City, making her the first Aboriginal Saint to have resided in what is now Canada.
Tekakwitha, also known as the “Lily of the Mohawks”, was born in 1656 in what is now New York State in the Mohawk community of Ossernenon.
Saint Kateri was persecuted for her faith and relocated to a Christian Mohawk village in present day Kahnawake, Quebec, where she died at the age of 24.
Tekakwitha taught prayers to children, cared for the sick and the elderly, and often attended mass both at sunrise and sunset in a Catholic mission.
As well, the Roman Catholic Church has credited her with performing life-saving miracles.
Pope John Paul II beatified her in 1980, and she has been honoured by the Catholic Church as the patroness of ecology, nature, and the environment.
A number of shrines in both Canada and the United States are dedicated to Saint Kateri, including the site of her burial at the St. Francis Xavier Mission in Kahnawake.