THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2012
PAGE 3
NEWS OF THE WORLD
Associated Presss
ASSOCIATED PRESS
EUROPE
Native Indians from Quebec, Canada, hold an image of Kateri Tekakwitha, the first American Indian to achieve sainthood, as they wait for the start of a canonization ceremony celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI, in St. Peter's Square, on Sunday.
Pope canonizes seven new saints
ASSOCIATED PRESS
VATICAN CITY — Some 80,000 pilgrims in flowered lei, feathered headdresses and other traditional garb flooded St. Peter's Square on Sunday as Pope Benedict XVI added seven more saints onto the roster of Catholic role models in a bid to reinvigorate the faith in parts of the world where it's lagging.
Two of the new saints were Americans: Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Native American saint from the U.S., and Mother Marianne Cope, a 19th century Franciscan nun who cared for leprosy patients in Hawaii.
It seemed as if a third saint, Pedro Calungsod, a 17th century Filipino teenage martyr, drew the biggest crowd of all, with Rome's sizeable Filipino expat community turning out in flag-waving droves to welcome the country's second saint.
In his homily, Benedict praised each of the seven as heroic and courageous examples for the entire church, calling Cope a "shining" model for Catholics and Kateri an inspiration to indigenous faithful across North America.
"May the witness of these new saints ... speak today to the whole church, and may their intercession strengthen and sustain her in her mission to proclaim the Gospel to the whole world," he said.
The celebrations began at dawn, with Native Americans in beaded and feathered headaddress and
leather-fringed tunics singing songs to Kateri to the beat of drums as the sun rose over St. Peter's Square.
Later, the crowds cheered as the pope read out the names of each of the new saints in Latin and declared that they were worthy of veneration by the entire church. Prayers were read out in Mohawk and Cebuano, the dialect of Calungsdod's native Cebu province, and in English by a nun wearing a lei.
"It's so nice to see God showing all the flavors of the world," marveled Gene Caldwell, a Native American member of the Menominee reservation in Neopit, Wisconsin, who attended with his wife. Linda. "The Native Americans are entralled" to have Kateri canonized, he said.
The canonization coincided with a Vatican meeting of the world's bishops on trying to revive Christianity in places where it's fallen by the wayside.
Several of the new saints were missionaries, making clear the pope hopes their example even though they lived hundreds of years ago — will be relevant today as the Catholic Church tries to hold on to its faithful. It's a tough task as the Vatican faces competition from evangelical churches in Africa and Latin America, increasing secularization in the West and disenchancement due to the clerical sex abuse scandal in Europe and beyond.
The two American saints actually hail from roughly the same place — what is today update New York — although they lived two centuries apart.
ing house in his native Brescia; Carmen Salles y Barangueras, a Spanish nun who founded a religious order to educate children in 1892; and Anna Schaeffer, a 19th century German lay woman who became a model for the sick and suffering after she fell into a boiler and badly burned her legs. The wounds never healed, causing her constant pain.
The other new saints are: Jacques Berthieu, a 19th century French Jesuit who was killed by rebels in Madagascar, where he had worked as a missionary; Giovanni Battista Piamarta, an Italian who founded a religious order in 1900 and established a Catholic printing and publish-
MIDDLE EAST
ASSOCIATED PRESS
A Syrian man looks at a damaged cars at the site after a car bomb attack in Bab Touma neighborhood on Sunday.
Taxi explosion in Syria's capital kills 13 people
AMMAN, Jordan — A taxi packed with explosives blew up near a police station in the Syrian capital Sunday, killing 13 people.
In Syria, two government officials speaking from the scene of the blast said the taxi exploded 50 yards from the main police station in Bab Touma.
The blast also wounded 29 people in the popular shopping district of Bab Touma.
sidewalks, shards of glass littered the pavement from shattered shop windows, and the charred bulks of at least four cars littered the street.
Vegetable vendor Mohammad Hanbali, said several people wounded in the blast were lying on the street when he rushed to help.
"It's a cowardly act, carried out by terrorists," said Hanbali, who was hit by a piece of shrapnel in the left leg.
An Associated Press reporter at the site said blood stained the street and
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Sunday's blast.
AFRICA
Libyan militias continue to clash against fighters
WADI DINAR, Libya — Pro-government militias battled fighters in a former stronghold of the late Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, the fifth straight day of clashes that have killed at least 30 people.
The fighting in Bani Walid, has overlapped with the anniversary of Gadhafi's capture and killing on Oct. 20, 2011. A
year since his death brought an end to Libya's civil war, Bani Walid is the most significant city in the country to still resist the nation's new authorities.
A resident said Sunday by telephone that pro-government militias and fighters in the city were clashing on its outskirts. The resident said there were reports of new casualties, but that the fighting was less intense than a day earlier.