Katharine Drexel

Life events

1. Born — 1858

   Catherine Mary Drexel was born on November 26, 1858, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Francis Anthony Drexel and Hannah Langstroth. Her mother died five weeks after her birth; her uncle Anthony Joseph Drexel and his wife Ellen cared for Katharine and her older sister Elizabeth before their father remarried Emma Bouvier in 1860.

2. Other — 1886

   During an audience with Pope Leo XIII in Rome in 1886, Drexel was urged by the pope to become a missionary herself rather than simply funding others to serve Native American and African American communities in the United States.

3. Tonsured — 1889

   In 1889, Drexel entered a convent of the Sisters of Mercy to begin her novitiate formation, a decisive step toward founding her own religious congregation dedicated to the needs of Black and Indigenous Americans.

4. Consecrated — 1891

   In February 1891, Drexel founded the Congregation of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People and became its first Superior General, a position she held for 46 years until illness compelled her retirement in 1937.

5. Other — 1915

   Responding to an appeal by Archbishop James H. Blenk, Drexel came to New Orleans in 1915 and purchased the old Southern University site, establishing Xavier High School — the institution that grew into Xavier University of Louisiana, the only historically Black and Catholic university in the United States.

6. Other — 1988

   Pope John Paul II beatified Drexel on November 20, 1988, accepting as her first verified miracle the healing of Robert Gutherman's severe ear infection in 1974.

7. Other — 2000

   Pope John Paul II canonized Drexel on October 1, 2000, accepting the 1994 reversal of congenital deafness in two-year-old Amy Wall as her second verified miracle. She became the second person born in the United States to be declared a saint and the first born a U.S. citizen.

8. Died — 1955

   Drexel died on March 3, 1955. Originally interred in Cornwells Heights, Bensalem Township, Pennsylvania, her remains were transferred in August 2018 to a new shrine at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul in Philadelphia.

Relationships

Documented claims

• Canonized by Pope John Paul II on October 1, 2000, Drexel was the second person born in the United States to be declared a saint and the first born a U.S. citizen. (certain)
• Xavier University of Louisiana, which Drexel founded from a New Orleans high school established in 1915, is the only historically Black and Catholic university in the United States. (certain)
• Drexel financed Mother Loyola — successor of foundress Lucy Eaton Smith of the Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine de' Ricci — to care for Afro-Cuban children orphaned during the Spanish-American War in Havana, when no church or government would support them because of their race. (likely)
• The Vatican identifies a fourfold legacy: love of the Eucharist and unity of peoples; courage in addressing social inequality among minorities; commitment to quality education; and selfless service including the donation of her entire inheritance. (certain)
• The Roman Catholic Church recognizes Drexel as patron saint of racial justice and of philanthropists; her feast is observed on March 3, the anniversary of her death. (likely)