BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: On Friday, millions of people celebrated St. Valentine's Day in honor of the early Church leader who has become the patron saint of lovers. Last week, Catholics also marked the feast day of another, lesser-known saint, Josephine Bakhita, from Sudan. The Catholic Church has launched a new effort to publicize its black saints, like St. Josephine. Once again, Kim Lawton.

KIM LAWTON: They stand as witnesses for a life of faith. There are young saints and old, men and women -- and, surprising to some, there are numerous saints from Africa -- people such as St. Augustine, the famous fourth-century bishop from North Africa.

BEVERLY CARROLL (U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops): I had always heard about St. Augustine. I knew that he was very important. He was a father of the Church. But no one ever took the time to say, "Oh yeah, and he was black."

LAWTON: The numbers are uncertain. Proclamation of sainthood was a lot looser in the early days of the Church than it is in today's strict process. Experts estimate there may be thousands of saints of African descent -- something the Church has not always emphasized. But today, U.S. Catholic officials have begun to spotlight the saints of Africa.

Ms. CARROLL: We're trying to get the word out, you know, to correct some of the information that we didn't necessarily have or we didn't put out there early on.

LAWTON: There's St. Augustine's mother, St. Monica, who prayed for 20 years that her wayward son would return to the Church. He finally did.

St. Martin de Porres, born in Peru in 1579. His father was Spanish; his mother, an African slave.

St. Charles Lwanga, martyred in Uganda in 1886.

There's a surprise discovery, St. Benedict the Moor, who lived in Sicily in the 16th century. People weren't aware his parents had been African.