Kateri Tekakwitha - Native American Saint

From Huffington Post:

Some traditional Mohawks are treating the naming of the nation's first Native American saint with skepticism and fear that the Roman Catholic Church is using it to shore up its image and marginalize traditional spiritual practices.

They see the story of Kateri Tekakwitha as yet another reminder of colonial atrocities and religious oppression.

A Catholic convert at 20, she settled in Kahnawake, a Mohawk settlement south of Montreal where Jesuits had a mission and where she and other women performed mortification rituals such as self-flogging as part of their faith. At her death at the age of 24, Kateri's smallpox scars reportedly vanished and later she was reported to appear before several people. She is buried at a shrine on Kahnawake.

Babara Koob - Saint Marianne Cope

From Syracuse dot com:

Barbara Koob moved from Utica to Syracuse in the summer of 1862, when she was 24, to enter the convent of the Sisters of St. Francis.

Twenty-one years later, the woman the world now knows as Saint Marianne Cope left Syracuse to work as a missionary among the lepers in Hawaii. Even during her lifetime, many considered her a saint for her bravery, compassion and leadership. She spent 35 years ministering to hundreds of people so feared that the Kingdom of Hawaii banished them to a remote, desolate peninsula of Kalaupapa on the island of Molokai.

In a Christmas present, the Sisters of St. Francis learned Monday that Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed Mother Marianne a saint in the Roman Catholic Church, and she will be canonized next year. The designation came after an intense, detailed process of nearly 40 years. The Franciscan sisters gathered thousands of pages of research about their heroine, toured the places she lived and worked and collected information about possible miracles, including two the Vatican ultimately ruled were healings of people whose recovery doctors could not explain.

The long journey to sainthood began with a modest life in Central New York. From 1862 to 1883, the future saint walked the streets of Syracuse in her roles as Franciscan leader and administrator of St. Joseph’s Hospital. She was among the Franciscan sisters who opened the 15-bed hospital in 1869 in a former dance hall and saloon on Prospect Hill.

Great set of links at the bottom of the article.

Exhibition: Catholic Nuns in American History

From the Observer:

South Bend's Center for History is hosting the national traveling exhibition "Women & Spirit: Catholic Sisters in America," an interactive tour through American history that chronicles the sisters' 300-year history in the country.

The exhibition details the stories of the nuns who pioneered the nation's religious, education, health care and social work systems. The South Bend Center for History, the University of Notre Dame and Saint Mary's College brought the exhibit to South Bend.

Marilyn Thompson, the Center's director of marketing and community relations, said the attraction of the exhibit lies in the depth of information it provides.

"This exhibition is so significant because it not only looks at the history of Catholic sisters, but at how their story mirrors the history of America," she said. "It's moments like these which help us to know how much prevalence these women have had in so many people's lives."