St. Kateri Tekakwitha

Q: Who was St. Kateri Tekakwitha?

Known as the “Lily of the Mohawks ,” St. Kateri Tekakwitha (1656–80) was the first Indigenous woman of North America to be canonized as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church . She is venerated as a patron saint of ecology.

Q: What is St. Kateri Tekakwitha the patron saint of?

St. Kateri Tekakwitha (1656–80) is a patron saint of ecology (along with St. Francis of Assisi ). During her life she was known for her kindness, prayer , faith, and heroic suffering.

Q: What tragedy devastated St. Kateri Tekakwitha’s family?

Born in 1656 in what is now New York , St. Kateri Tekakwitha survived a smallpox epidemic when she was four years old. The disease claimed her parents and younger brother. Left orphaned, physically scarred, and visually impaired, she was raised by her aunt and uncle, a Mohawk chief.

Q: What was the miracle of St. Kateri Tekakwitha?

St. Kateri Tekakwitha was declared a Roman Catholic saint in 2012 after the Vatican confirmed as authentic the miraculous healing of a young boy suffering from a flesh-eating bacterial infection. The miracle occurred in 2006 after the boy came into contact with a relic of Tekakwitha, whom his family also prayed to for her intercession. The miracle paved the way for Tekakwitha’s canonization as the first Indigenous female saint.

Mohawk saint

Also known as: Catherine Tekakwitha, Kateri Tegakouita, Kateri Tegakwitha, Lily of the Mohawks(Show More)

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Last updated

Nov. 4, 2026 •History

Who was St. Kateri Tekakwitha?

What is St. Kateri Tekakwitha the patron saint of?

What tragedy devastated St. Kateri Tekakwitha’s family?

What was the miracle of St. Kateri Tekakwitha?

St. Kateri Tekakwitha (born 1656, probably Ossernenon, New Netherland [now Auriesville, New York, U.S.]—died April 17, 1680, Caughnawaga, Quebec [now in Canada]; canonized October 21, 2012; feast day in the U.S., July 14; feast day in Canada, April 17) was the first Indigenous woman of North America to be canonized as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church. She is venerated as a patron saint of ecology.

Tekakwitha was the child of a Mohawk father and a Christianized Algonquin mother. At age four she was the only member of her family to survive smallpox, which affected her own health. Staying with her anti-Christian uncle, she was deeply impressed at age 11 by the lives and words of three visiting Jesuits, likely the first white Christians she had ever encountered. She began to lead a life inspired by the example of those men, and at age 20 she was instructed in religion and baptized Catherine (rendered Kateri in Mohawk speech) by Jacques de Lamberville, a Jesuit missionary to the Iroquois people.

Harassed, stoned, and threatened with torture in her home village, Tekakwitha fled 200 miles (320 km) to the mission of St. Francis Xavier at Sault Saint Louis (which had been established by French Jesuits in 1680), near Montreal. There she came to be known as the “Lily of the Mohawks” in recognition of her kindness, prayer, faith, and heroic suffering.

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Accounts of Tekakwitha’s life written by de Lamberville and fellow missionaries contributed significantly to the documentation necessary for her canonization, the cause for which opened in 1932. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1980. In December 2011, after evaluating the testimony of a young boy who claimed that his infection with flesh-eating bacteria miraculously disappeared after he prayed for her intercession, Pope Benedict XVI recognized Tekakwitha as a saint. She was officially declared a saint the following October.