VATICAN CITY — Tens of thousands of faithful, some wearing feathered headdresses and beads, others in colorful Hawaiian shirts and leis, turned out Sunday as Pope Benedict XVI canonized seven saints, including the first American Indian one as well as a 19th-century nun who tended to patients with leprosy in Hawaii.

Cheers rose from the crowd when the pope named Kateri Tekakwitha, known as “Lily of the Mohawks” and beloved by American Indians; and Sister Marianne Cope, a German-born nun who was raised in Utica, N.Y., before moving to Hawaii. But the loudest cheers were for St. Pedro Calungsod, a 17th-century Filipino martyr, from a large contingent of Italy’s Filipino community that came out to celebrate.

The canonization Mass comes amid a meeting of bishops aimed at shoring up religious belief worldwide, and several of the saints were missionaries.

Benedict prayed that “the witness of the new saints” would “speak today to the whole church.” “May their intercession strengthen and sustain her in her mission to proclaim the Gospel to the whole world,” he added.