SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) - A group of pilgrims from Syracuse are among the 80,000 people celebrating new Catholic saints in Rome.
Two of the seven new saints have upstate New York ties. Mother Marianne Cope was a Syracuse nun who ministered to leprosy patients in Hawaii. Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Native American saint from the U.S., was a Mohawk Indian from northern New York.
Sharon Smith of Chittenango, near Syracuse, carried a relic in a special container to the altar at the Vatican ceremony on Sunday. Smith's 2005 cure from complications from pancreatitis was declared the "miracle" needed for Mother Marianne to be named a saint. There's a shrine to Saint Marianne in Syracuse.
A group organized by the Syracuse Sisters of St. Francis traveled to Rome for Sunday's ceremony.
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