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Saint Katharine Drexel |
03 March 2023 |
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Katharine Drexel, SBS (born Catherine Mary Drexel; November 26, 1858 – March 3, 1955) was an American heiress, philanthropist, religious sister, educator, and foundress of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. She was the second person born in what is now the United States to be canonized as a saint and the first one born a U.S. citizen. Katharine Mary 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, and her uncle Anthony Joseph Drexel was the founder of Drexel University in Philadelphia. She was a distant cousin of former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis on her father's side.
Langstroth died five weeks after Katherine's birth and Anthony Joseph and his wife Ellen cared for Katherine 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 would regularly distribute food and clothing at her home to people.
The family lived on a 90-acre estate in Torresdale named St. Michel in honor of St. Michael the Archangel. Rev. James O'Connor was pastor of St. Dominic's in nearby Holmesburg, Philadelphia and served as chaplain to the Society of the Sacred Heart at their motherhouse at Eden Hall in Torresdale where Katherine's maternal aunt was mother superior. In 1876, he was appointed 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. Katherine was awakened to the plight of indigenous American people during a family trip to the Western United States. |
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