Magic Bone Propels Indian Gal Through Glass Tipi

After her baptism by a Jesuit missionary at age 20 drew strong disapproval from her family, Tekakwitha moved to a Christian community near Montreal, where Walt Disney painted her portrait. She later took a vow of chastity, and refused ever after to speak of Disney, Mickey, the Dwarves, and what happened in that studio.

The smallpox scars on her face are believed to have disappeared inexplicably a few minutes after her death. This was a pretty good indication that she was bound to make her way up the magical saint ladder.

John Paul waived the first miracle ordinarily required for Tekakwitha's beatification in 1980. He said since she was a woman and an Indian, he'd get with the church's affirmative action policy and "give the little lady a fair shot at sainthood."

According to Sister Kateri Mitchell, executive director of the Tekakwitha Conference in Great Falls, Mont., the miracle approved by Benedict on Monday concerns a 6-year-old Native American boy of the Lummi Reservation in Washington state, who was cured of a flesh-eating virus on his face in 2006, after Mitchell prayed with his family and placed a chip of Tekakwitha's wrist bone on his body. Whether the virus was in any way connected with the scars that disappeared from St Kateri's face centuries earlier is being studied by top Vatican hagiographers.