Pope canonizes seven new saints

VATICAN CITY, Oct. 21 (UPI) -- Roman Catholic Pope Benedict XVI canonized seven new saints Sunday during a Mass in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City.

"With heroic courage they spent their lives in total consecration to the Lord and in the generous service of their brethren," the pope said in his address carried on Vatican Radio. "They are sons and daughters of the Church who chose the path of service following the Lord."

There were three men and four women canonized.

One of the women was the first North American Indian to be canonized.

Kateri Tekakwitha was born in upstate New York in 1656 to a Mohawk father and a Christian Algonquin mother. The new saint worked as a nun near Montreal.

German-born Marianne Cope was hailed for self-sacrifice in helping a colony of outcast lepers in Molokai, Hawaii for the last 30 years of her life.

The other new saints were Frenchman James Berthieu, a Jesuit martyr who was executed in Madagascar; and Pedro Calungsod, a martyr in the Philippines; John Baptist Piamarta; Maria Carmen Salles y Barangueras and Anna Schaeffer.