Katharine Drexel


Katharine Drexel, SBS was an American Catholic religious sister, and educator. In 1891, she founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, a religious congregation serving Black and Indigenous Americans.
Canonized by Pope John Paul II in 2000, Drexel was the second person born in the United States to be declared a saint and the first who was born a U.S. citizen.

Early life

Drexel was born Catherine Marie Drexel in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on November 26, 1858, to Francis Anthony Drexel and Hannah Langstroth. She had an older sister, Elizabeth. Her family owned a considerable banking fortune. Her uncle, Anthony Joseph Drexel, was the founder of Drexel University in Philadelphia. Katharine's mother Hannah died five weeks after her birth, and Anthony Joseph and his wife Ellen cared for Katharine and Elizabeth for the next two years. Her father married Emma Bouvier in 1860, brought his older children home, and had a third daughter, Louise, in 1863.
The girls grew up in a wealthy and religious household with charitable principles. Emma regularly distributed food and clothing at her home to people.
The family lived on a 90-acre estate, in the Torresdale section of Philadelphia, named St. Michel, in honor of Saint Michael, the archangel. James O'Connor was pastor of St. Dominic's in the nearby Holmesburg section of Philadelphia, and served as chaplain to the Society of the Sacred Heart at their motherhouse at Eden Hall in Torresdale, where Katharine's maternal aunt was mother superior.
In 1876, James O'Connor was appointed Catholic Archdiocese of Omaha|vicar apostolic of Nebraska], an area that covered Nebraska, northeastern Colorado, Wyoming, and parts of Utah, Montana, and the Dakotas. He was consecrated titular Bishop of Dibona at the chapel at Eden Hall. Katharine was awakened to the plight of indigenous American people during a family trip to the Western United States and was inspired.

Religious work

In these early years, Drexel traveled extensively, both in her home country and abroad. In 1886, during an audience with Pope Leo XIII, she was urged to become a missionary and to realize her desire to assist the Indian and African American population in the country. In 1889, Katharine Drexel fulfilled that wish by entering a convent of the Sisters of Mercy and in February 1891, she founded the Congregation of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People. Drexel decided to establish the congregation to address the needs of Native Americans and African Americans in the southern and western United States, as well as the poor black communities. She served as first Superior General of the congregation and held that position until 1937, when illness made it necessary that she retire from active administration.
An appeal by the late Archbishop James H. Blenk brought Mother Katharine to New Orleans in 1915 to open the way for the education of the black youth in the city. This led to the purchase of the old Southern University site, and establishing Xavier High School, later known as Xavier Preparatory School. She financed more than 60 missions and schools around the United States, as well as founding Xavier University of Louisiana – the only historically Black and Catholic university in the United States. She financed Mother Loyola, the blood sister and successor of foundress Lucy Eaton Smith of the Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine de' Ricci, to care for Afro-Cuban children in Havana, Cuba during and after the Spanish–American War. The children had been orphaned by the war, and no other church or government entity was willing to support them because they were children of color.

Awards and accolades

She had received the following awards and accolades:
  • In 1938, she was awarded the DeSmet Medal from Gonzaga University, Spokane, Washington.
  • In the same year, 1938, she was also awarded the Catholic Action Medal from the Knights of Columbus, Santo Domingo Council, in Philadelphia.
  • In 1942, she was the recipient of an award and scroll by the Catholic Committee of the South.
  • Also in 1942, the Republic of Haiti acknowledged her with the Honneur et Merite Medal.
  • In 1943, she was recipient of the Sienna Medal for the most distinctive contribution to Catholic life in the United States.

    Beatification, canonization and remembrance

Drexel was beatified by Pope John Paul II on November 20, 1988, when her first miracle through prayer, healing the severe ear infection of teenage Robert Gutherman in 1974, was accepted. She was canonized on October 1, 2000, when her 1994 miracle reversing congenital deafness in 2-year old Amy Wall was recognized.
The Vatican cites a fourfold legacy of Drexel:
  • A love of the Eucharist and perspective on the unity of all peoples;
  • courage and initiative in addressing social inequality among minorities;
  • her efforts to achieve quality education for all;
  • and selfless service, including the donation of her inheritance, for the victims of injustice.
She is known as the patron saint of racial justice and of philanthropists. Pope Leo XIV sees her as an example of those who, during their lives, "discovered that the poorest are not only objects of our compassion, but teachers of the Gospel. It is not a question of 'bringing' God to them, but of encountering among them."
Her feast day is observed on March 3, the anniversary of her death.
Drexel was originally buried in Cornwells Heights, Bensalem Township, Pennsylvania and the Saint Katharine Drexel Mission Center and National Shrine was formerly located at St. Elizabeth's Convent in Bensalem, Pennsylvania. The Mission Center offered retreat programs, historic site tours, days of prayer, presentations about Saint Katharine Drexel, as well as lectures and seminars related to her legacy. The convent was subsequently sold and in August 2018, Drexel's remains were transferred to a new shrine at the Cathedral [Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul (Philadelphia)|Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul] in Philadelphia.
A second-class relic of Drexel can be found inside the altar of the Mary chapel at St. [Raphael the Archangel Catholic Church] in Raleigh, North Carolina, and in the Day Chapel of in Sugar Grove, Illinois.
Numerous Catholic parishes, schools, and churches are dedicated to St. Katharine Drexel:

Parishes

Schools St. Katharine Drexel founded or funded include :
Schools named in her honor include:
The choir loft window in the Chapel of Our Lady of the Sioux, Saint Joseph's Indian School, Chamberlain, South Dakota, was donated by the Drexel Family.

Streets

  • Drexel Road, Tucson, Arizona
  • Drexel Drive, New Orleans, LA
  • Drexel Street, Nashville, TN
  • Drexel Avenue, Oak Creek, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin.

    Other

  • The St. Katharine Drexel Region of the Secular Franciscan Order
  • Katharine Drexel library located on Knights Road in Philadelphia, PA.