At the canonisation ceremony, the pontiff urged the faithful to follow the "luminous example" of the two sisters and two others, from France and Italy, who were canonised along with them on a sunny spring morning. Pope Francis arriving for a special audience on Saturday at the Vatican with the nuns of the Rome's diocese. Credit:Reuters Marie Alphonsine Ghattas was born in 1843 in Jerusalem during its rule by the Ottoman Empire, and died there during the British mandate period in 1927. She was beatified - the final step before canonisation - in 2009. Mariam Bawardy was born in Galilee, now in northern Israel, in 1846. She became a nun in France and died in Bethlehem in 1878 and was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1983.

Around 2000 pilgrims from the Palestinian territories, Israel and Jordan, some waving Palestinian flags, attended the mass as well as Mr Abbas. Pope Francis with the president of the Palestinian authority Mahmoud Abbas at the Vatican on Saturday. Earlier Mr Abbas met with the Vatican's secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and "great satisfaction was expressed" over the bilateral accord reached on Wednesday, which concerns "various essential aspects of the life and the activity of the Catholic Church" in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, the Vatican said in a statement. The treaty will be signed "in the near future," the Vatican statement said. With regard to the peace process with Israel, the Vatican reiterated its hope that "Israelis and Palestinians may take with determination courageous decisions to promote peace". Interfaith dialogue was also emphasised as a means to combat terrorism in the Middle East.

Mr Abbas' meeting with the Pope ended with an exchange of gifts. Presenting Mr Abbas with a medallion, the Pope said it depicted an angel of peace "destroying the bad spirit of war". It was an appropriate gift, the Pope added, since "you are an angel of peace". Mr Abbas gave the Pope relics of the two new saints. Ghattas, through her focus on women's education and community work, left behind a network of convents, schools and religious centres - a more palpable legacy than Bawardy, who lives on more through the memory of her tough and mysterious life. For sainthood, the candidate must have lived a holy life, as determined by the Catholic Church, and must usually have at least two miracles to their name, attributable to prayers made to them posthumously. A miracle that led to Ghattas's canonisation was the resuscitation of a Palestinian engineer in 2009, who was electrocuted and suffered a heart attack, but regained consciousness two days later after relatives prayed for her intercession.

During her life, Ghattas is said to have seen the Virgin Mary in several apparitions, and nuns talk of miracles she performed then, including saving a girl who had fallen down a well by tossing her rosary into the water. Bawardy, after becoming a nun of the Carmelite order, helped found the Carmelite Monastery in Bethlehem. Orphaned at a young age and illiterate, she had her throat slit by an angry would-be suitor when she refused to convert to Islam, but a mysterious "nun in blue" is said to have saved her life, the Carmelite order's website says. She travelled to France to become a nun, then to India to help set up a monastery there, and eventually settled in Bethlehem. Although there are several saints who lived in the region during Christianity's early days, Bawardy and Ghattas are the first to be canonised from Ottoman-era Palestine.

The canonisation of a third Palestinian - a Salesian monk - is still under review by the Church. The other two new saints are Jeanne-Emilie de Villeneuve (1811-1854) and Maria Cristina dell'Immacolata (1856-1906). New York Times, AFP