The Irish Catholic Churches of Quebec - K is for Kateri Tekakwitha

Kateri Tekakwitha is first Catholic saint of North America’s indigenous peoples.

For the first time in history, a member of the indigenous population of North America has been canonized by the Catholic church. Kateri Tekakwitha was a young Mohawk woman who lived over 300 years ago. Her admirers attribute special powers to her.

Hundreds of members of the Mohawk nation and other indigenous peoples file past a tomb in the Catholic church in Kahnawake,  an Indian reservation near Montreal. Silently, they kneel to pray at the grave of a small Mohawk woman who lived over 300 years ago and did not grow older than 24. Her name is on the tomb: Kateri Tekakwitha.


“Everybody is proud of her,” says Audrey Diabo, a resident of Kahnawake who came to the church with her elderly mother. “Ever since growing up as a kid, everything is always Kateri. She was a Mohawk and we’re going to pray to her.”...more