A Lummi Nation boy and his family will be in the Vatican next week for the canonization of Kateri Tekakwitha, a Mohawk woman who lived in the 1600s and who has been named a saint by the Catholic Church.

Jake Finkbonner, 12, was five years old when he contracted a flesh-eating virus. He was cured in a miracle that is attributed to Tekakwitha, who will be the first Native woman to enter sainthood.

"She's not for one tribe or another. She's for all Native Americans," Elsa Finkbonner, Jake's mother, told The Tacoma News Tribune.

The canonization ceremony takes place October 21.

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Ferndale family heads to Rome for canonization of first American Indian saint (The Tacoma News Tribune 10/14)
Mohawk woman to become Catholic saint (CBC 10/14)