People

Dioceses along the East Coast followed the government's lead and closed Monday and Tuesday for Hurricane Sandy.

The appointments weren't announced during the synod, so news only spread during the prelates' lunch break.

Since 1997, Eleanor St. John has lived for the day when one of her greatest heroes would be recognized as a saint by the Catholic church -- Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha.

That year, St. John attended her first Tekakwitha Conference, named for the young maiden known as the "Lily of the Mohawks."

Blessed Kateri, the daughter of a Christian Algonquin mother and a Mohawk father in upstate New York, will be canonized Sunday at the Vatican by Pope Benedict XVI, along with several others. She will become the first Native American saint.

Mexican Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iniguez said he sees "many possibilities here in the United States for vocations from the Spanish-speaking people," and urged priests and other church leaders to work for vocations among Hispanic Catholics.

"Go to the children, speak to the children" to cultivate new vocations, he said in an interview with The Record, newspaper of the Louisville Archdiocese.

He also had a message for Hispanic Catholics in the United States. "Don't lose your faith in Christ. Maintain yourselves inside the church," he said.