Katharine Drexel, SBS (born Catherine Mary Drexel; November 26, 1858 – March 3, 1955) was an American Catholic religious sister and educator. In 1891, she founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, a religious congregation serving Black and Indigenous Americans. Canonized by Pope John Paul II in 2000, Drexel was the second person born in the United States to be declared a saint and the first who was born a U.S. citizen.
Catherine Marie Drexel was born on November 26, 1858, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Francis Anthony Drexel and Hannah Langstroth. She had an older sister, Elizabeth. The Drexel family was very wealthy, having made a fortune in banking. Her uncle, Anthony Joseph Drexel, was the founder of the Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry in Philadelphia. Today it is Drexel University. Katharine's maternal aunt was mother superior of Society of the Sacred Heart at their motherhouse at Eden Hall in Torresdale.
The Drexel family lived on a 90 acres (36 ha) estate, located in the Torresdale section of Philadelphia. It was named St. Michel, after Saint Michael, the archangel. Hannah died five weeks after Catherlne's birth. Her Uncle Anthony and Aunt Ellen cared for her and Elizabeth for the next two years. In 1860, her father Francis married Emma Bouvier and brought the two girls home. The couple had a third daughter, Louise, in 1863.
Francis and Emma Drexel placed great value on their Catholic faith and its admonitions to help the poor. As a young girl, Catherine helped her stepmother distribute food and clothing at their home every week to needy people. James O'Connor, pastor of St. Dominic's Parish in the Holmesburg neighborhood, served as a spiritual advisor to Catherine as she grew older.
In 1876, O'Connor was appointed vicar apostolic of Nebraska, an area that large areas of the American West.During a family trip to the Western United States, Katharine was awakened to the plight of Native Americans and decided she wanted to help them.
In these early years, Drexel traveled extensively in the United States and abroad. In 1886, she was granted an audience with Pope Leo XIII in Rome. During their meeting, he urged her to become a missionary and realize her desire to assist the Native American and African American population in the United States. In 1889, Drexel entered a convent of the Sisters of Mercy. In February 1891, she founded the Congregation of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People. Drexel wanted the congregation to help these people in the southern and western United States as well as the big cities. She became the first superior general of the congregation.
An appeal by Archbishop James Blenk brought Drexel to New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1915 to open the way for the education of the black youth in the city. This led to the purchase of the old Southern University site, and establishing Xavier High School, later known as Xavier Preparatory School. She financed more than 60 missions and schools around the United States, as well as founding Xavier University of Louisiana – the only historically Black and Catholic university in the United States. She financed Mother Loyola, the blood sister and successor of foundress Lucy Eaton Smith of the Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine de' Ricci, to care for Afro-Cuban children in Havana, Cuba, during and after the Spanish–American War. The children had been orphaned by the war, and no other church or government entity was willing to support them because they were children of color.
She had received the following awards and accolades:
DeSmet Medal – Gonzaga University, Spokane, Washington (1938)
Catholic Action Medal – Knights of Columbus, Santo Domingo Council, Philadelphia (1938)
Award and scroll – Catholic Committee of the South (1942)
Honneur et Merite Medal – Republic of Haiti (1942)
Siena Medal – Theta Phi Alpha social fraternity (1943)
In 1974, 14-year-old Robert Gutherman was living in Bensalem when he developed severe pain in his right ear. His brothers did janitorial work at the motherhouse of Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. That inspired his sister to suggest the family all pray for Drexel's intercession to help Gutherman heal. After being hospitalized, doctors told Gutherman that he would be permanently deaf in his right ear. However, a few days later, the hearing was restored to his right ear. His doctors could not come up with any medical explanation for the cure.
Drexel was beatified by Pope John Paul II on November 20, 1988, when her first miracle through prayer, the Gutherman healing, was accepted. She was canonized on October 1, 2000, when her 1994 miracle reversing congenital deafness in two-year-old Amy Wall was recognized.
Her feast day is observed on March 3, the anniversary of her death.
Drexel was originally buried in Cornwells Heights, Bensalem Township, Pennsylvania, and the Saint Katharine Drexel Mission Center and National Shrine was formerly located at St. Elizabeth's Convent in Bensalem, Pennsylvania. The Mission Center offered retreat programs, historic site tours, days of prayer, presentations about Saint Katharine Drexel, as well as lectures and seminars related to her legacy. The convent was subsequently sold and in August 2018, Drexel's remains were transferred to a new shrine at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul in Philadelphia.
A second-class relic of Drexel is located inside the altar of the Mary chapel at St. Raphael the Archangel Catholic Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. Another relic resides in the day chapel of Saint Katharine Drexel Parish in Sugar Grove, Illinois.