VATICAN CITY — Some 80,000 pilgrims in feathered headdresses and other traditional garb flooded St. Peter’s Square on Sunday as Pope Benedict XVI added seven more saints onto the roster of Catholic role models in a bid to reinvigorate the faith in parts of the world where it’s lagging.

Two of the new saints were Americans: Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Native American saint from the U.S., and Mother Marianne Cope, a 19th century Franciscan nun who cared for leprosy patients.

It seemed as if a third saint, Pedro Calungsod, a 17th century Filipino teenage martyr, drew the biggest crowd of all, with Rome’s sizable Filipino expat community turning out in droves to welcome the country’s second saint.

In his homily, Benedict praised each of the seven as heroic and courageous examples for the entire church, calling Cope a “shining” model for Catholics and Kateri an inspiration to indigenous faithful across North America.

The celebrations began at dawn, with Native Americans singing songs to Kateri to the beat of drums as the sun rose over St. Peter’s Square.

The canonization coincided with a Vatican meeting of the world’s bishops on trying to revive Christianity in places where it’s fallen by the wayside.

Several of the new saints were missionaries, making clear the pope hopes their example — even though they lived hundreds of years ago — will be relevant today as the Catholic Church tries to hold on to its faithful.