Miracles certified by Vatican, Kateri will become a saint

PHOTOGRAPHER: Edward Munger Jr.

For years, faithful Catholics have come to the hilltop site of a former Mohawk Indian village to ask for the help of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha.

And the “Lily of the Mohawks” has answered those prayers, said Elizabeth Lynch, museum coordinator at the National Shrine of North American Martyrs.

“I hear almost every week someone say how their prayers were answered through the intercession of Blessed Kateri,” she said.

Lynch and other Catholics were rejoicing Monday upon hearing that Kateri Tekakwitha was among seven Catholics approved for the final step toward sainthood when the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI, certified miracles attributed to them.

Born in the hilltop Indian village called Ossernenon overlooking the Mohawk River in what is now Montgomery County, Kateri Tekakwitha lived from 1656 to 1680. Three centuries after her death, she became the first Mohawk Indian to be beatified by the Roman Catholic Church in 1980.

Efforts to gain sainthood for Tekakwitha have continued since then, with the most recent goal being to prove an act attributable to Blessed Kateri could be considered a miracle — something Benedict recently approved in a decree at the Vatican.

Details of that miracle have been kept secret and could not be learned Monday.

“I am thrilled to learn about the authentication of the miracle attributed to Kateri’s intercession,” Albany Roman Catholic Diocese Bishop Howard Hubbard said in a statement provided Monday via email.

The cause for Tekakwitha’s sainthood was initiated by the late Bishop Edmund F. Gibbons, said Hubbard, who was present for Tekakwitha’s beatification three decades ago.

“I look forward to the canonization of this holy and loving disciple of Jesus which, hopefully, will take place during 2012. Her canonization will be a source of great joy for the people of our diocese and for the Native American community of the United States and Canada,” Hubbard said in the statement.

Kateri Tekakwitha is honored in two sites near the Mohawk River — at her birthplace in Auriesville and at the National Shrine of the Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha in the town of Mohawk, just west of Fonda.

Tekakwitha, born the daughter of a Mohawk chief, suffered from the effects of smallpox, which claimed the lives of her parents and a sibling.

The Indian village in today’s Auriesville was destroyed by a French war party and she and others moved to a fortified village on the other side of the river, now site of the National Shrine of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, according to the National Shrine’s website. That shrine was closed Monday and a man who answered the door declined to comment about the news.

She faced mistrust on the part of some in her community who feared importation of smallpox. She also faced ridicule, accusations and threats before she escaped to a mission in Canada.

There, she was known for teaching prayers to the youth and helping the sick and elderly until she died in 1680 at age 23.

Tekakwitha is buried in Quebec, but part of her remains are in Auriesville, considered a “pilgrimage site for devotees” of Tekakwitha, Lynch said.

An altar was built in her name inside the Cathedral Church at the National Shrine of North American Martyrs and there is also a chapel there dedicated to the Lily of the Mohawks.

Lynch said for years they’ve held a special Mass every Wednesday at the Shrine, where the faithful pray for Tekakwitha’s sainthood, prayers that may be answered soon.