Native Americans celebrate first Catholic sainthood

(CBS News) VATICAN CITY - At the Vatican Sunday, two women who lived in America were elevated to sainthood. One did her work in Hawaii, and the other was a Mohawk from upstate New York -- the first Native American canonized.

St Peter's Square has seen every kind of Catholic ceremony there is, but this one broke the mould. For the first time, Native Americans were here in force.

The draw was the first of their people ever to be proclaimed a saint.

Kateri Tekakwitha was born in 1656 in what is now upstate New York. Disfigured and partially blinded by smallpox, she was thrown out of her tribe when she converted to Christianity at age 20, and died four years later. She came to be known as the "Lily of the Mohawks".

For Gerald Tukwin, a Native American from Potawatomi, Kansas, it was the culmination of a dream.

"I thought a lot of our ancestors are probably really excited this day, although they've already passed on they got to be happy with us and what's taken place here in the Vatican," Tukwin said.

The church sees saints as way of rekindling faith.

Making the grade as a saint can take years, sometimes centuries. The most important criteria is miracles: One to be to be beatified; a second to reach sainthood.

Twelve year-old Jake Finkbonner from Washington State is Tekakwitha's second. Stricken with a flesh-eating disease at age five, he was inexplicably cured after his parents prayed to her.

The elevation of Mother Marianne Cope, who worked in the leper colony in Molokai, Hawaii, until her death in 1918, brings the total of American saints to twelve.

Benedict praised the new saints as "heroic and courageous examples".

Coincidentally or not, their canonization came as Catholic bishops are meeting here to find ways to revive Christianity in places where it is fading.

[ForMidnight]

I thank God on a daily basis for the Catholic Church, that has done such incredible good in the world that it is now the greatest charitable organization the world has ever seen. More people receive education, food, water, medical care and pastoral counseling from the Church than from any other source or institution.
In addition, the Church continues to teach the truth of Christ in season and out of season and will continue to do so until the end of the world.
Every violent, totalitarian dictatorship that tried to destroy the Church - in the 20th century, German Nazism and Russian Communism - has found itself consigned to the garbage heap of history.
In the end there will be Christ and his Church, and outside of it there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

[ForMidnight]

waynenipper
Very simply, what I wrote is true. What you wrote is not, by any stretch of the imagination. Either you know that or you don't, but it's up to you to learn. It is not my job to teach you.

[ForMidnight]

waynenipper
Your understanding of Christian theology and Catholic history is so seriously flawed that I could not even begin to repair it here. Also, your nonsensical distorted view of the Catholic Church and its relation to science is sophomoric at best and I am speaking as a trained scientist and theologian. You appear content to rely on copying and pasting from asinine websites that know as little as you do. How pitiful your knowledge is and how grand your opinions are. A sure sign of a non-student and non-learner. But since you have quoted from Albert Einstein, here's a direct quote from a letter written by Einstein about the Catholic Church, published in Time magazine:
"Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the case of truth; but no, the universities immediately were silenced.
Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom. But they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks. Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth.
I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess, that what I once despised, I now praise unreservedly."
- Albert Einstein
You are wrong and you have embarrassed yourself on every single issue you've raised here, without exception. But truth is not what you desire, is it? It never was and it never will be.
Fail.

[gregorio57]

You who spew venom and hate about God and the Catholic Church, do not know what you are talking about.

[servorum]

The lives of the saints inspire us to strive to live lives that are worthy of the gospel of Christ. Christ commanded us to take up our cross and follow him, and 2,000 years later we still do, even in the face of growing ignorance and rejection from a world that is quickly sinking into an inhuman atheism and a hatred for Christ and his One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. May the saints pray for us and intercede for us.
Extra ecclesiam nulla salus.

[blessingwaycompanion]

May our new Saint Kateri and all the Saints pray for us and especially intercede with the Most High in behalf of all the virulent and rabid anti-religious, anti-Catholic, and anti-human commentators who are so vilely venting here about Kateri's Canonization. These attacks are unwarranted and as pathetic as anything can get. Please get a life--a new life in Christ Jesus and by the blessing of all the truly great and enlightened souls whose holy and exemplary lives should raise us all up and not tear us down like soul-less savage beasts. You are pitiful. God bless you and heal you.

[broznin]

Jesus Christ is a filthy, mindless cretin and only weak minded fools believe in him. I freely admit to detesting ALL religion. You are the one who needs help. And by the way, sht on "God."

[mopteron]

What an insult to a people? This is the institution that tried to wipe out native americans and replaced them with slaves. This terrorist cult went so far as to canonize Saint D'Youvile in the 1990s in Montreal where she used to sell Black and Indian slaves on behalf of the catholic church... Now both the slave master and the genocide victim are canonized by the same insane cult. What a joke!!

This may just be an attempt to turn the world's attention from the plight of millions of kids that this cult has abused in the last century when it was no longer busy dealing with native Americans' resistance to their hegemony....

This is bad joke and american indians should reject such a move.

[bco67]

Perhaps, you need to re-read your history book. The Catholic Church did no such thing.

[Snaggledog]

The Roman Terrorist Catholic Church is indeed one sick SOB.

[rwsmith29456]

Seems to me that the Vatican is trying to make a positive and popular move.

[nfission]

These women are heroes, they don't need validation from the catholic church. The catholics can take their sainthood and shove it. So what does it mean to be given sainthood? How does that change a person's life once their already dead? Heads up catholics and protestants, there is no longer a need for religion, that's why it is disappearing. Too many bad religious people... and news travels fast in cyber space. Problem is, we don't see anything Christian about Christianity anymore. Churches are demanding that the sheeple vote Republican, the antithesis of Jesus who was a liberal and a socialist, read the NT, it's in there. Let's be honest, the catholic bishops are trying to find a way to make more money and drum up business because there is nothing religious or Christian about their business organization.

[broznin]

The Catholic Church is a dying, reprobate monstrosity, riddled with corruption, greed and ignorance. It deserves the disgust and repudiation of all civilized and enlightened peoples the world over. It deserves annihilation, the sooner the better.

[bco67]

I am assuming from your comment that you don't have a clue to what you are talking about. Sainthood means we have a visible sign that this person is in Heaven. Jesus was not a socialist, there is not one time in the bible where Jesus said pay taxes to the government so they can redistribute it to others. Jesus certainly would not have approved of many of the tenets that Liberals prescribe to today, including abortion.

[bco67]

broznin -

I assume your comment demonstrates the "enlightened" people you are referring too.

[heuristic1]

I don't understand the celebration of this native American sainthood bestowed by the most detestable enemy that Native Americans ever had: The Holy Roman Catholic Church. For centuries, the Church murdered, pillaged and committed near genocide against the native peoples of North America. The church's legacy of repression and cruelty meted to to the tribes that had the misfortune of coming into contact with "Mother Church" is legendary. A more proper response by the ancestors of the victims of the Catholic Church would be to repudiate the so-called sainthood with contempt.

[heuristic1]

I don't understand the celebration of this native American sainthood bestowed by the most detestable enemy that Native Americans ever had: The Holy Roman Catholic Church. For centuries, the Church murdered, pillaged and committed near genocide against the native peoples of North America. The church's legacy of repression and cruelty meted to to the native tribes that had the misfortune of coming into contact with "Mother Church" is legendary. A more proper response by the ancestors of the victims of the Catholic Church would be to repudiate the so-called sainthood with contempt.

[heuristic1]

I don't understand the celebration of this native American sainthood bestowed by the most detestable enemy that Native Americans ever had: The Holy Roman Catholic Church. For centuries, the Church murdered, pillaged and committed near genocide against the native peoples of North America. The church's legacy of repression and cruelty meted to to the native tribes that had the misfortune of coming into contact with "Mother Church" is legendary. A more proper response by the ancestors of the victims of the Catholic Church would be to repudiate the so-called sainthood with contempt.