Saint Kateri Tekakwitha
Only known portrait from life of Catherine Tekawitha, c. 1690, by Father Chauchetière
Virgin[1]
Born	1656 Ossernenon, New York
Baptized	April 18, 1676
Died	April 17, 1680 (aged 24) Kahnawake (near Montreal), Quebec, Canada
Venerated in	Catholic Church
Beatified	June 22, 1980, Vatican City by Pope John Paul II
Canonized	October 21, 2012, Vatican City by Pope Benedict XVI
Major shrine	Saint Francis Xavier Church, Kahnawake, Quebec, Canada
Feast	July 14 April 17 (Canada)[citation needed]
Attributes	Lily; Turtle; Rosary
Patronage	ecologists, ecology, environment, environmentalists, loss of parents, people in exile, people ridiculed for their piety, Native Americans
Controversy	Pressure to marry against will, shunned for her Catholic beliefs

Kateri Tekakwitha (pronounced [ˈɡaderi deɡaˈɡwita] in Mohawk), given the name Tekakwitha, baptized as Catherine^[2][3] and informally known as Lily of the Mohawks (1656 – April 17, 1680), is a Catholic saint and virgin who was an Algonquin–Mohawk. Born in the Mohawk village of Ossernenon, on the south side of the Mohawk River in present-day New York State, she contracted smallpox in an epidemic; her family died and her face was scarred. She converted to Catholicism at age nineteen, when she was baptized and given the Christian name Kateri in honor of Catherine of Siena. Refusing to marry, she left her village and moved for the remaining five years of her life to the Jesuit mission village of Kahnawake, south of Montreal on the St. Lawrence River in New France, now Canada. Kateri Tekakwitha took a vow of perpetual virginity. Upon her death at the age of 24, witnesses said that her scars vanished minutes later, and her face appeared radiant and beautiful. Known for her virtue of chastity and mortification of the flesh, as well as being shunned by some of her tribe for her religious conversion to Catholicism, she is the fourth Native American to be venerated in the Catholic Church.^[4] She was beatified in 1980 by Pope John Paul II, and canonized by Pope Benedict XVI at Saint Peter's Basilica on 21 October 2012.^[5][6] Various miracles and supernatural events are attributed to her intercession.