Saint Katharine Drexel: Apostle to the Oppressed by Lou Baldwin
Katharine Drexel was born the middle daughter in an upper-class Philadelphia family in 1858. Their extended family had varying degrees of Catholic fervor but the three Drexel sisters were very devout. Katharine was especially devoted to the Holy Eucharist and wished she could receive daily communion, something not possible at the time. Her parents died and left a large fortune to the three daughters, though they only received the income from the fortune during their lives. Many young women were taken advantage of by fortune hunters and Francis Drexel wanted to protect his children from exploitation. Even so, the income was substantial.
Katharine struggled in her young adulthood with her vocation. She wanted to serve the poor, especially the African-American and Native-American communities that were at best neglected (more often despised) in late-19th century America. The Catholic Church, while interested in all peoples, only had limited abilities (and struggled with prejudice against it at that time). Katharine funded several missions out west and started schools in Philadelphia. The Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions formed in the 1870s and Katharine was a staunch financial supporter.
She was convinced by her bishop to start her own religious order dedicated to ministering to these underserved communities. The process was long and arduous. She began with temporary vows and training at the Religious Sisters of Mercy in Pittsburgh. Soon enough, she established a convent in Philadelphia and drew young women to her own Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. Several years were required by the Philadelphia Bishop O'Connor before the sisters could go out west--they needed both spiritual formation and practical education to minister on the reservations. Drexel began a vocational school that would eventually transform into Drexel University. The sisters began serving a variety of communities in the American west.
She also funded several schools and parishes for African-American communities, starting in Philadelphia and branching out to the American South. Memories of the Civil War were still fresh in many minds and hearts. Fighting both segregation and discrimination became an ongoing battle for her nuns. She founded Xavier University of Louisiana, the first Catholic and Black university in America. Katharine traveled often to visit the sisters across the country.
She lived to the middle of the twentieth century. Her cause for sainthood was opened almost immediately (several people who knew her thought she was a saint during her lifetime). She was canonized in 2000, the first U. S. citizen to be declared a saint.
This biography does a good job recording Katharine's history and her personal character, going through the events of her life starting with her grandparents, the first Drexels to come to American in the 1700s. The overview in interesting and inspiring.
Recommended.
Sample quote, from Cardinal Dougherty, the Archbishop of Philadelphia during Katharine's Jubilee year in 1941:
Humanly speaking, the sacrifice was heroic. She did not give up nets and other fishing apparatus as the first Apostles; she did not leave poverty and drudgery; she turned her back on wealth, social prominence, enjoyment of all that money can buy in order, even in her early youth, with its bright prospects, to dedicate her life to the outcast, downtrodden despised Indians and Negroes of the United States. [p. 185]
Posts
