Drexel to be canonized Phi la's· second saint

by Joe Holden news editor

Katharine Drexel will become Philadelphia's second saint, an honor that no other U.S. city claims. Pope John Paul II made the announcement last Friday adding that the date for her canonization will be October l, 2000. The decision was reached after the Pope conferred with other cardinals from around the world.

The announcement comes one week after a Mass celebrating Drexel's feast day was said at the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter nities in the South.

After much prayer and consideration, Drexel professed her vows and founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament on Feb. 12, 1891 along with 13 other companions. Drexel became Sister Mary Katharine, S.B.S.

The young order's missionary work began quickly with its presence on the reservations of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico. The sisters opened a boarding school on the reservation and another school for African American children. In 1902, St. Michael's school on the Navajo Indian reser- deafness of Amy Walls, a Bucks county child whose parents prayed for Drexel's intercession on behalf of their child. Medical experts and doctors could not explain the sudden reversal of Walls' impairment.

Walls and her family were present at the Mass, along with Robert Gutherman, who was cured of a serious ear infection and impainnent in 1974, which paved the way for Drexel's 1988 beatification.

Archbishop Giovanni Battista Re, Vatican substitute secretary of state, sent Bevilacqua a letter concerning Drexel which he read during his homily:

"I am writing to you in reply to your letter of Jan. 31 concerning the cause for canonization of Mother Katharine Drexel. In this regard I would inform you that the ordinary public consistory at which Mother Drexel's cause will be discussed is scheduled for March 10, 2000."

The Pope rendered his decision in favor of Drexel, approving her cause for sainthood. He will canonize her Oct. I at St. Peter's members of the congregation during the procession. and Paul, Center City, Philadelphia.and more notably, after the last miracle needed for her canonization to sainthood. More than 2000 people overflowed the cathedral for the noon Mass. Archbishop Anthony Cardinal Bevilacqua presided at the Mass among a score of bishops, priests, deacons and other religious.

Drexel, a Philadelphia native, was born into a wealthy, Catholic family in 1858. Drexel and her two sisters were educated by private tutors and frequently vacationed throughout the United States and Europe.

At the age of21, Drexel began to consider a call to religious life while she was tending to her ill mother. Upon the death of her father, Drexel and her sisters inherited their father's fortune. Drexel quickly saw the need to minister to those less fortunate, using her $20 million inheritance to fund projects on American Indian missions and in African American commu- vation was opened. The order continued to open many boarding and day schools in the East, Midwest and in the rural and urban areas of the South and Southwest.

In 1917, a teacher preparatory school was opened in New Orleans. The school received a charter in I 925 and became known as Xavier University of New Orleans. Today, this school is one of the few in the nation to have remained predominantly African American.

Drexel suffered a near-massive heart attack in 1935 causing her to enter retirement. For the next 20 years, she spent her days praying and was said to have had a "saintly devotion to the Blessed Sacrament" Drexel died on March 3, 1955. During her lifetime, she was directly responsible for opening, financially supporting and staffing more than 60 schools and missions.

Drexel's journey to canonization was accelerated by the church's recent approval of the cure of