BBC News Online: World: Americas

Brazil gets first female saint

Pope John Paul the Second has canonised Brazil's first female saint in a ceremony in the Vatican.

Hundreds of Brazilians, including President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, attended the event in St Peter's Square.

Paulina do Coracao Agonizante de Jesus, a Brazilian nun of Italian origin, founded a convent of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception and an orphanage in the south of the country.

She died in 1942 and was beatified during the Pope's visit to Brazil in 1991.

During the ceremony the Pope also canonised four other religious workers from Italy and Spain.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service