World in brief: Pope canonizes Brazilian monk

Pope Benedict XVI on Friday gave this enormous Roman Catholic country its first native-born saint, canonizing a Franciscan monk credited with providing thousands of miracle cures.

The pope also used the occasion to remind followers to live their lives like saints, too, exhorting the faithful to resist popular media that glamorize sex and ridicule virginity.

The ceremony to elevate Friar Antonio de Sant’Anna Galvao to sainthood represented a nod to popular local traditions. Hundreds of thousands of flag-waving Brazilians gathered in Campo de Marte, a grassy military airfield on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, to celebrate their new saint.

Galvao, who lived and worked in Brazil in the 18th and early 19th centuries, built a religious retreat for women. He is regarded as the guardian of women in labor. Brazilian believers swallow so-called Galvao pills, small pieces of paper inscribed with a prayer in Latin, to be healed of various ailments.

Georgetown, Guyana

Beauty queen held in husband’s death

A Guyanese beauty queen and reigning Mrs. South America was charged Friday with strangling her wealthy husband, who was found dead at the couple’s estate in the capital.

Carolan Lynch, who was crowned last October, was not required to enter a plea when she appeared before a judge.

Her husband, Farouk Razack, director of the largest currency exchange business in Guyana, was found dead Monday in the couple’s bedroom.

Police said Lynch, believed to be in her early 30s, told detectives she found her 44-year-old husband’s body after returning home from driving her daughter to school and thought he had suffered a stroke. But investigators said an autopsy found abrasions on Razack’s neck and determined he had been strangled.

The beauty queen’s attorney, Nigel Hughes, was quoted in the Stabroek News as saying she was innocent and is not strong enough to have strangled her husband.