Local religious officials celebrate canonization of Indiana's first saint

The Roman Catholic Church recognizes more than 10,000 canonized saints, and now the state of Indiana offers its first: Blessed Mother Theodore Guerin.\nPope Benedict XVI will canonize Guerin Sunday at the Vatican. She will be only the eighth canonized saint to have spent most of her time in the United States.\n"I believe that becoming a saint is a great thing," IU student Greg Rockett said. "It means that you were a very helping and religious person while you were alive, and for someone from my state to be bestowed of this title is a great thing."\nNear Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College, a Catholic liberal-arts college near Terre Haute that she established, Guerin's contributions to not only Indiana but the entire nation are being recognized — Gov. Mitch Daniels named a section of highway US 150 in her honor, according to a news release from Daniels' office.\nSt. Paul's Catholic Center, 1413 E. 17th St., plans to celebrate the canonization during mass Sunday by praying for and through the Blessed Mother.\n"It makes me very happy that someone from Indiana is being canonized as a saint and as a fellow Hoosier," said Father Stan Drongowski, an associate pastor at St. Paul's.\nCatholics at IU are proud of this honor, noting the Blessed Mother Theodore Guerin has contributed to the state of Indiana.\n"It is a wonderful thing knowing someone from Indiana has made that big of an impact on people across the country," IU freshman Amanda Nielsen said. "For her to be known throughout the world for the good deeds she has provided is definitely respected and deserved."\nThe soon-to-be-saint was born in 1798 in the region of Brittany, France, as Anne-Therese Guerin. When Guerin was 15 years old, bandits murdered her father, and her mother went into a deep depression, according to a news release from the Sisters of Providence, a congregation of Roman Catholic women of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods. She took it upon herself to care for the family but made a life changing decision: In 1840, the Bishop of Vincennes and the Mother Superior, the head of the congregation, urged her to head a mission to the United States.\nWithin a year of arriving in Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Ind., she established the Academy, now known as Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College, which is the oldest college of its kind in the United States.\n"It's really cool. People think of saints long ago and far away, and to have one close to us in Indiana brings it close to home," Drongowski said.\nGuerin died in 1856 when she was 58.\nTo become a saint, two miracles must be attributed to the person's intercession after his or her death. For Blessed Mother Theodore Guerin, these miracles occurred in 1908 and 2000, according to the release. The first miracle occurred in 1908, when Sister of Providence Mary Theodosia Mug asked for healing of another sister through prayer to Mother Theodore. On the morning after her prayer at Mother Theodore's tomb, Sister Mary Theodosia herself was cured of several major health problems, the news release said.\nThe second miracle occurred in 2000 when Phil McCord, director of Facilities Management for the Sisters of Providence, experienced pain and discomfort in his right eye after cataract surgery. According to the news release, the problem was diagnosed by a specialist to be severe enough to have to undergo a cornea transplant. McCord was fearful of that diagnosis because he could have lost all sight in his right eye. He visited the Church of the Immaculate Conception at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods one day and, through prayer, asked for Mother Theodore's assistance in finding the courage to proceed with the surgery. Before he left the church that day, he said he felt peaceful and believed he had the strength to proceed.\nAlthough the miracles are part of the process of canonization, it is not the most important, Sister Marie Kevin Tighe said in a statement.\n"What is really significant is how Blessed Mother Theodore lived her Christian religious life," Tighe said.