Q&A with Fr John Flader
Question: I recently came across an American saint I had never heard of before, St Katharine Drexel. Who was she and what did she do?
Answer: St Katharine was an American religious sister who founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, a religious congregation dedicated to serving black and indigenous Americans.
She is a saint for our times, having died as recently as 1955.
Katharine was born in November 1858 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Her father Francis was a wealthy financier and philanthropist, and her uncle Anthony Drexel was the founder of Drexel University in Philadelphia.
She had an older sister, Elizabeth.
Five weeks after her birth, her mother died, and her uncle Anthony and his wife looked after Katharine and Elizabeth for the next two years.
In 1860 her father married Emma Bouvier and took his two daughters home with them. In 1860 the couple had another daughter, Louise.
Katharine and her sisters grew up in a wealthy but religious household, with strong charitable principles.
Her stepmother Emma distributed food, clothing and money to the poor twice a week from their home.
The family lived on a 35 hectare estate in the Torresdale area of Philadelphia.
It was called St Michel, in honour of St Michael, the archangel. Katharine’s maternal aunt was the mother superior of the Society of the Sacred Heart in Torresdale, an indication of how religious the family was.
During a family trip to western United States in 1884, Katharine was awakened to the poverty and destitution of Native Americans on reservation lands and she was inspired to do something to help them.
When her father died in 1885, she and her sisters inherited a vast fortune.
Believing that all people should have access to education, she continued the work earlier undertaken by her family of founding and endowing schools and churches for African Americans and Native Americans in the South and West.
She visited these establishments, traveling by donkey and stagecoach.
In January 1887 Katharine had a private audience with Pope Leo XIII in which she pointed out the need for nuns to staff her religious schools.
The Pope challenged her to devote her life and fortune to this work.
In 1889, she fulfilled that desire, becoming a novice with the Sisters of Mercy in Pittsburgh.
In February 1891 she took her final vows and, with a few companions, founded the Blessed Sacrament Sisters for Indians and Coloured People.
They lived in the Drexel summer home in Torresdale and the following year moved to the new St Elizabeth’s Convent in Cornwells Heights.
The congregation received final papal approval in May 1913.
Sr Katharine served as the first Superior General of the Congregation and remained in that position until 1937, when illness prevented her from continuing.
She soon began an extensive building campaign, founding St Catherine’s Boarding School for Pueblo Indians in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1894, and then a school for African American girls in Rock Castle, Virginia in 1899.
In 1915 she established Xavier High School in New Orleans for the education of black children.
In 1925 the school became Xavier University of Louisiana, the only historically black and Catholic university in the US. It is still in existence.
By the time of her death in 1955 she had used more than $12 million of her inheritance to establish 49 primary schools, 12 high schools, and Xavier University.
In addition, she financed an organisation in Havana, Cuba, to care for Afro-Cuban children who had been orphaned by the Spanish-American War.
Sr Katharine died on 3 March 1955 at the age of 96.
She was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 20 November 20, 1988 and was canonised by the same Pope on October 1, 2000.
The Vatican cited especially her love for the Eucharist and her view on the unity of all peoples; her courage and initiative in addressing social inequality among minorities; her efforts to achieve quality education for all; and her selfless service, including the donation of her inheritance, for the victims of injustice.
She is the patron saint of racial justice and philanthropists. Her feast day is March 3, the day of her death.
Sr Katharine is the second US-born saint, following St Elizabeth Ann Seton, who was canonised in 1975.
