Tina Wickland, age 16, of Rutland, Vt., for her question:

WH0 WAS THE FIRST U.S. CATHOLIC SAINT?

The first United States citizen to be canonized by the Roman Catholic church as a saint was a missionary nun named Frances Xavier Cabrini.

Born in Italy in 1850, she worked in a small orphanage where she organized her workers in a religious community. In 1889 Pope Leo XII asked her to work in the United States and she gave up a dream of someday becoming a missionary in China.

With seven other sisters in her order, Mother Cabrini formed the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart and helped Italian Immigrants in New York City. She then set up schools and orphanages in New York City, New Orleans and Nicaragua.

In 1892 the first Columbus Hospital of the order was opened. Mother Cabrini then set up many more hospitals around the world.

She became an American citizen in 1909. In 1917 at the age of 67 she died in the convent she had founded in Chicago. In 1946 she was canonized as Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini.