New saint's admirers meet with her French relatives in Rome

ROME -- Hoosiers celebrating the canonization of Indiana's first saint met Monday with some of the 19th century nun's French relatives, praying and singing during a special service in Rome's second-largest basilica.\nThe Rev. Dale Ehrman led a group of 18 students and several staff members from Blessed Theodore Guerin High School in Noblesville, Ind., to Monday's service for Mother Theodore Guerin, who was elevated to sainthood Sunday.\nEhrman said the group met with a great-niece and a cousin of Guerin, who was born in 1798 in Brittany, France, and founded St. Mary-of-the-Woods College in western Indiana near Terre Haute.\n"Some of the students knew a little French, but we had a translator," Ehrman said.\nPope Benedict XVI on Sunday praised Guerin for her perseverance in carrying out God's mission. He elevated her, and three other clergy from past centuries, to sainthood in a ceremony in St. Peter's Square.\nGuerin, who died in 1856 at the age of 57, led a group of six French nuns who arrived in Indiana on Oct. 22, 1840.\nThere, she founded a religious order, The Sisters of Providence of St. Mary-of-the-Woods, and founded St. Mary-of-the-Woods College. The college enrolled its first student in 1841.\nMary Weber, 43, a graduate of the college, was among hundreds of other alumnae, students or other Guerin admirers who attended the thanksgiving Mass in St. Paul Outside the Wall Basilica near one of Rome's ancient roads.\nThe basilica is Rome's largest church after St. Peter's Basilica.\nWeber said Guerin "was so pure. She served the Church with love and gratitude."\nIndianapolis Archbishop Daniel Mark Buechlein celebrated the Mass, which ended with long applause. Lafayette Bishop William Leo Higi and other bishops from Indiana who had celebrated Sunday's Mass with the pope also took part in Monday's service.\nSister Stephanie Dalton, who belongs to the French order of the Sisters of Providence, attended the Mass and Monday's service.\nThe Lincoln, England, resident likened Sunday's canonization ceremony to a "microcosm of all the Church."\n"Mother Guerin taught us that God is great and always takes care of us," Dalton said. "I will take away with me a tremendous sense of joy and a renewed sense of providence in my life."\n"I'm so happy and proud. She is the eighth American saint and the first Indiana saint," said Bonnie Schott, 55, from Indianapolis.\nProudly showing her class ring from St. Mary-of-the-Woods College, Marci Backer, 38, from Jasper, Ind., referred to Guerin's decades-long battle with frail health. "Mother Theodore was very sick but she never gave up"