Born Katharine Drexel in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on November 26, 1858, this future saint was the second daughter of Francis Anthony Drexel, a banker and philanthropist, and Hannah Langstroth. Heiress to a great fortune, she would devote her life and wealth entirely to the service of Black and Native American peoples in the United States. A family trip to the Western United States as a young woman confronted her with the plight and destitution of Native Americans. When she appealed to Pope Leo XIII in Rome for missionaries to serve them, he suggested she become a missionary herself. After consultation with her spiritual director, Bishop James O'Connor, she embraced that calling. On February 12, 1891, she professed her first vows as a religious, founding the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, a congregation dedicated to sharing the Gospel and the life of the Eucharist among American Indians and Afro-Americans — the interracial apostolate.
🌟 Mission to Black and Native American Peoples
The first school she established was St. Catherine Indian School in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1887. During her lifetime she opened, staffed, and directly supported nearly 60 schools and missions, especially in the West and Southwest United States. Her crowning educational work was the establishment in 1925 of Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans — the only predominantly African American Catholic institution of higher learning in the United States at the time. For the last 18 years of her life she was rendered almost completely immobile by a serious illness, giving herself to adoration and contemplation. She died on March 3, 1955.
🕯️ Feast Day & Canonization
March 3 — Optional Memorial in the Dioceses of the United States (USCCB Proper Calendar); the date coincides with her death in 1955. Beatification: November 20, 1988, by Pope John Paul II in Rome. The miracle accepted for her beatification was the healing of fourteen-year-old Robert Gutherman's severe inner ear damage, attributed to prayer to Mother Katharine. Canonization: October 1, 2000, by Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Square, Vatican City. The miracle accepted for her canonization was the healing of little Amy Wall's deafness. She was the second American-born person ever to be canonized.
🙏 Patronage
Commonly attributed as patron of racial justice and of philanthropists, reflecting her lifelong mission against racism and her use of inherited wealth to fund schools and missions. No official Vatican or USCCB patronage assignment has been identified among the primary Catholic sources consulted; this attribution should be regarded as unofficial pending a primary source.
⛪ Major Shrines
Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) — Shrine of Saint Katharine Drexel, at 18th Street and Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, PA 19103. Her sacred remains rest in a newly constructed tomb near the Drexel Family altar, to the left as you enter the Cathedral. On August 2, 2018, her remains were translated from the Motherhouse of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, to the Cathedral Basilica, after the Sisters announced in May 2016 their decision to sell the Motherhouse property. The new tomb opened to the public in September 2018, and the public installation Mass was celebrated on Sunday, November 18, 2018, by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.
🔗 Related Saints
Saint John Neumann — Fourth Bishop of Philadelphia and a pioneer of Catholic education in America, whose earlier work in the city prefigured Drexel's own educational mission among minority communities.
