Saint Katharine Drexel
Virgin
- Feast Day
- March 3
- Life
- 1858–1955
- Canonized
- 2000
- Order
- Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People
- Born
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Catherine Mary Drexel was born on November 26, 1858, in Philadelphia to Francis Anthony Drexel, a wealthy banker, and Hannah Langstroth. After her mother's death, she was raised by her father and stepmother, Emma Bouvier Drexel, who instilled in her a sense of stewardship over wealth.
On a private audience in Rome in 1887, Pope Leo XIII responded to her appeal for missionaries to serve Black and Native American communities in the United States by inviting her to become a missionary herself. After taking initial vows in 1891, she founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People, dedicating both her religious life and her substantial inheritance, estimated at over twenty million dollars, to the evangelization and education of these communities.
Mother Katharine and her congregation established nearly sixty schools and missions, including in 1915 Xavier University of Louisiana, the only historically Black Catholic university in the United States. She suffered a serious heart attack in 1935 and lived the final twenty years of her life in retirement and contemplative prayer at the motherhouse in Cornwells Heights. She died on March 3, 1955.
Pope Saint John Paul II beatified her on November 20, 1988, and canonized her on October 1, 2000, in Saint Peter's Square.
Saint Katharine Drexel's life unites Eucharistic devotion with social mission. In his canonization homily, Pope Saint John Paul II identified her witness as showing that the Church's love of God in the Blessed Sacrament must be inseparable from love of neighbor, particularly the marginalized. Her redirection of inherited wealth into education for Black and Native American Catholics gave concrete expression to the doctrine of the universal destination of goods and remains a model of Catholic philanthropy.
Patronages
racial justice · philanthropists
Catholic Churches Named After Saint Katharine Drexel
20 parishes on Catholic Church Times share Saint Katharine Drexel's name. Find their Mass times, confession schedules, and adoration hours:
- St. Katharine Drexel — Alton, NH
- St. Katharine Drexel — Ramsey, MN
- St. Katharine Drexel Chapel (All Saints Parish) — Harpswell, ME
- St. Katharine Drexel — Cape Coral, FL
- St. Katharine Drexel — Springfield, IL
- St. Katharine Drexel — Sugar Grove, IL
- Saint Katharine Drexel Catholic Church — Cascade, ID
- St. Katharine Drexel — Mechanicsburg, PA
- Saint Katharine Drexel Catholic Church — Wildwood, GA
- Saint Katharine Drexel — Weston, FL
- St. Katharine Drexel Mission — Maple, NC
- St. Katharine Drexel — Martell, CA
- Church of St. Katharine Drexel — egg harbor township, NJ
- St. Katharine Drexel Church — Hempstead, TX
- St Joseph/Shrine of St. Katharine Drexel — Columbia, VA
- St. Katharine Drexel — Sioux Falls, SD
- St. Katharine Drexel Parish — Chicago, IL
- Richeyville Mission-Saint James and Saint Katharine Drexel Parishes — Richeyville, PA
- St. Katharine Drexel Parish — Burlington, NJ
- St. Katharine Drexel Parish - St. Patrick — Macedon, NY
Sources