Mother Katharine Drexel

by Cheryl C. D. Hughes

  When important visitors came to the convent of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, Katharine Drexel would often have someone else meet them at the station, preferring to continue her eucharistic adoration, her prayers, or simply her work, rather than to put herself forward. At the opening ceremony for Xavier University, she did not join the bishops, clergy, and secular political leaders of Louisiana on the platform. She watched the ceremony from an upper-story window seated alone. When in her later years the president of Haiti wanted to present her with a presidential decoration and citation in thanksgiving for the work of her sisters in Haiti, she had to be persuaded to accept the awards. She never liked to be the center of attention. Even in her youth she described her lavish debutante ball as a “little party.” Though she undoubtedly knew her social graces, she must have been Philadelphia society’s most reluctant debutante. Her humility is a virtue to be imitated by those grown arrogant in prosperity. The Catholic Church teaches that it is in weakness, not in strength, that grace works best.

  Katharine Drexel’s holy chastity is a model for all men and women to follow both inside and outside of marriage. In a society where “having it all” includes sexual license, the pope feared for the souls of those exploited by the sexual revolution that resulted in one in two marriages ending in divorce and skyrocketing out-of-wedlock births with 34 percent of babies born outside of marriage in the United States (68 percent of African American babies are born to single mothers), thereby pushing more women and children into poverty. Of the 48 percent of unintended pregnancies that occur each year in the United States, one-half end in abortion. In 2000 alone, 1.31 million abortions were performed in the United States. African American women are three times more likely to have an abortion than are Caucasian women.126 Due to the sexual revolution in the United States, men are becoming superfluous as fathers and breadwinners; they are losing a sense of responsibility and taking on an attitude of sexual entitlement that threatens both men and women. Katharine Drexel’s obedience to Christ and his church is a model for a society that has raised individualism to iconic status, where the individual is a god, creating his or her own meaning and directing life to suit only himself or herself. According to the late pope, such autonomy quickly and easily leads to the selfish pursuit of happiness and slavery to sin. Obedience to God brings true liberation and the freedom to do as one ought in conformation to Christ.

  “Poverty, chastity, and obedience,” Pope John Paul II wrote, “are distinctive features of the redeemed person, inwardly set free from the slavery of egotism. Free to love. Free to serve. . . . Following in the footsteps of the crucified and risen Christ, they live this freedom of solidarity, taking on the spiritual and material burdens of their brothers and sisters.”127 He could have used the term kenosis here. Kenosis is a distinctive feature of the redeemed person. An African American, Georgetown University theologian Diana L. Hayes, who is not married, has taken a vow of celibacy. She claims her vow has set her free to be of service to others and to have a wide selection of intimate friends and family with whom she feels more “present.” She is able to give to them her undivided self. “For me, the celibate state provides, not a selfish freedom of self-indulgence and irresponsibility, but a responsible freedom to live a life of service to God.”128 By elevating St. Katharine Drexel, John Paul II did not say that all women should be nuns of consecrated virginity, because clearly they should not. In the total gift of self, which is the mark of true love, men and women may practice a kind of chastity in marriage as well as outside of it. It is the love of God that led Katharine Drexel to make the gift of herself in order to become a mother to African American and Native American peoples in the United States. She emptied herself to be filled with the love of her eucharistic God, whom she then shared with his brothers and sisters.

  Her canonization directly calls attention to her particular charism, her mission to the least of Christ’s brothers and sisters in the United States. In holding up Katharine Drexel, the pope proclaimed that her canonization “served to raise awareness of the continuing need, even in our own day, to fight racism in all its manifestations.”129 Pope John Paul II opposed racism in all its forms. The ideal communio in the Church precludes racism: “Perfect communion in love preserves the Church from all forms of particularism, ethnic exclusivism or racial prejudice, and from national arrogance. This communion must elevate and sublimate every purely natural legitimate sentiment of the human heart.”130 While the Church as a divine institution and the body of Christ may be protected from racism and particularism, as a human institution, the Church’s members, even its hierarchy, have not always been untarnished by these sins.

  The Belgian missionary Father Joseph Anciaux, SSJ, was so alarmed at the indifference of the U.S. Catholic clergy toward the needs of African Americans that he wrote directly to Pope Pius X in Rome. His 1903 letter has come to be known by the title “The Miserable Conditions of Black Catholics in America.” In it, he wrote, “Nearly all priests, even the most pious, fear reproach of white citizens so much they scarcely dare to make the slightest effort on behalf of blacks; others are so imbued with prejudice that they say: ‘The care of blacks is not my concern. They do not belong to my flock.’ ” He noted that one callously indifferent priest responded to Anciaux’s efforts to minister to African Americans by saying, “One wastes time and money in ministering to blacks. . . . What reason can there be that you are so solicitous of the Negro?”131 The first ordained priests of African American descent were the three Healy brothers, born in America of an Irish father and a slave mother. It is telling that they chose to pass for Caucasian throughout their lives. As late as 1954, when the bishop of Raleigh, North Carolina, put an end to segregated Catholic churches in his diocese, the editor of the Catholic magazine Commonweal observed, “The American Catholic Church was about as interested in blacks in America as it was in American Indians, which was not very much.”132 From these types of statements, it is easy to see why Katharine Drexel’s charismatic and prophetic love for African American and Native American people was so revolutionary in her time and such an appropriate mirror to hold up to a people still enveloped in a residually racist society. She taught her sisters: “Have a cordial respect for others in heart and mind; if there is any prejudice in the mind we must uproot it, or it will pull us down.”133 Racism destroys both its object and its subject. In the homily at her canonization, Pope John Paul II proclaimed that

  Katharine Drexel is an excellent example of that practical charity and generous solidarity with the less fortunate which has long been the distinguishing mark of American Catholics. To her religious community, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, she taught a spirituality based on prayerful union with the Eucharistic Lord and zealous service of the poor and the victims of racial discrimination. Her apostolate helped to bring about a growing awareness of the need to combat all forms of racism through education and social services. May her example help young people in particular to appreciate that no greater treasure can be found in this world than in following Christ with an undivided heart and in using generously the gifts we have received for the service of others and for the building of a more just and fraternal world.134

  That there are saints like Katharine Drexel is one of the signs of the times that gave Pope John Paul II hope for the third millennium. Its dawn was a time pregnant with possibilities for the now deceased pope. For John Paul II, who led the Roman Catholic Church for more than twenty-five years, it was a time of great expectations. He believed that saints are a sign that the economy of Christ’s salvation of mankind is coming to fruition. Despite moral decay, death, famine, and war, he would preach, “Be not afraid to welcome Christ and accept his power. . . . Open wide the doors for Christ. To his saving power open the boundaries of states, economic and political systems, the vast fields of culture, civilization, and development. Be not afraid. Christ knows ‘what is in man.’ He alone knows it. . . . Be confident in his love.”135 He preached, especiall
y, “Do not be afraid to be saints!”136

  1. Homily, October 22, 1978, online (accessed July 28, 2004). See the Vatican Web site for English translations of papal writings, homilies, and speeches, except where noted. The encyclicals of Pope John Paul II are also published in The Encyclicals of John Paul II, ed. J. Miller, CSB (Huntington, Ind.: Our Sunday Visitor, 2001).

  2. Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973), p. 827.

  3. John Paul II, Homily, October 22, 1978, online.

  4. The other saints are St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, St. Mother Francis Xavier Cabrini, St. John Neumann, St. Mother Rose Duchesne, St. Mother Theodore Guerin, and St. Kateri Tekakwitha.

  5. See the Vatican Web site for papal facts and statistics.

  6. See Pope John Paul II’s Encyclical Evangelium Vitae, March 25, 1995, 28.2.

  7. Pius XII, Radio Address, October 26, 1946, quoted in John Paul II, Dominum et Vivificantem, May 18, 1986, 47.1.

  8. John Paul II, December 2, 1984, 18.

  9. John Paul II, Apostolic Letter, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, October 16, 2002 (Washington, D.C.: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, February 2003), 40.

  10. The pope’s first reference to Galileo is in his address of November 10, 1979, to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on the commemoration of Einstein’s birth. “I wish that theologians, scholars and historians . . . might examine more deeply the Galileo case and, in an honest recognition of wrongs . . . [lead] to a fruitful concord between science and faith. . . . I give my entire support to this task.”

  11. As the cardinal of Krakow, Wojtyla visited the Krakow synagogue in 1968 during the Soviet pogrom in Poland, the first cardinal to ever visit. In April 1986, as pope, he visited the synagogue in Rome, where he addressed the assemblage as “My dear older brothers.” The Jewish Anti-Defamation League recognized Pope John Paul II on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his pontificate, noting that “His deep commitment to reconciliation between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people has been fundamental to his papacy.” ADL Press release, ADL Web site.

  12. See Mulieris Dignitatem, August 15, 1988. Mulieris Dignitatem has not been universally well received. See Gerry McCarthy’s interview with theologian Mary Malone at thesocialedge.com.

  13. John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis, March 4, 1979, 14.1.

  14. John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis, 16.1. Also see Dives in Misericordia, November 30, 1980, 11; Dominum et Vivificantem, 57; Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, December 39, 1987, 15.5-6.

  15. John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 37.1.

  16. John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis, 10.1.

  17. John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 28.7. Also see Evangelium Vitae, 3-4, 10.4; Redemptor Missio, December 7, 1990, 58.2; John Paul II, Apostolic Letter, Novo Millennio Ineunte (Boston: St. Paul Books and Media, 2001), 51; John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation, Christifideles Laici (Boston: St. Paul Books and Media, 1988), 34; John Paul II, Encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia (Washington, D.C.: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2003), 20; John Paul II, Apostolic Letter, Tertio Millennio Adventiente, November 10, 1984, 41-45; and Vatican Council II Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, 35.

  18. See John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, 23.1.

  19. It is the fruit of the Holy Spirit that helps to form a conscience able to call good and evil by their right names. See John Paul II, Dominum et Vivificantum, 36.

  20. John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation, Redemptionis Donum, March 25, 1984, 4.

  21. Quoted in George Weigel, Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II (New York: Cliff Street Books, 2001), p. 880.

  22. Homily, All Saints Day, November 1, 2000.

  23. Quoted in Ralph Martin and Peter Williamson, eds., Pope John Paul II and the New Evangelization: How You Can Bring the Good News to Others (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1995), p. 87.

  24. John Paul II, Novo Millennio Inuente, 33.

  25. John Paul II, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, October 16, 2002, 28.

  26. Bernard Hoose, ed., Christian Ethics: An Introduction (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1998), p. 118.

  27. John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis, 10.1-3.

  28. June 7, 2004.

  29. John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis, 19.1.

  30. John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, 84.3.

  31. Both papal quotations found in Joseph Cardinal Cordeiro, “The Religious Sense of Man,” in John Paul II: A Panorama of His Teachings, ed. Joseph Cardinal Bernardin (Brooklyn: New City Press, 1989), pp. 72-73; hereafter Panorama.

  32. John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope (New York: Knopf, 1995), p. 190.

  33. See Weigel, Witness to Hope, p. 802.

  34. L’Osservatore Romano, English ed., November 24, 1986, p. 22.

  35. John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, 13.2.

  36. Gaudium et Spes, 24.

  37. Bernardin, Panorama, pp. 201, 202.

  38. Gaudium et Spes, 24.

  39. Bernardin, Panorama, p. 202.

  40. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter, Laborem Exercens, 4.1.

  41. John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis, 14.1.

  42. Karol Wojtyla [John Paul II], Sources of Renewal, trans. P. S. Falla (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1980), p. 61.

  43. “Our sharing in the body and blood of Christ leads to no other end than that of transforming us into that which we receive.” St. Leo the Great, quoted in Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, Some Aspects of the Church Understood as Communion (Boston: St. Paul Books and Media, 1992), note 20.

  44. See Jean-François Lyotard, The Differend: Phrases in Dispute, trans. George Van Den Abbeele (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988).

  45. See Alain Badiou, Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil, trans. Peter Hallward (London: Verso, 2001).

  46. John Paul II, Novo Millennio Ineunte, 43.

  47. John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 5.

  48. John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 34.

  49. John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 34.

  50. Pope John Paul II, Letter to All the Bishops of the Church, Dominicae Coenae (Boston: Daughters of Saint Paul, February 4, 1980), 1, 5, and 9.

  51. John Paul II, Dominicae Coenae, 3.

  52. John Paul II, Homily, April 29, 2004.

  53. SBS Holy Rule 124.

  54. Benedict Groeschel and James Monti, In the Presence of Our Lord: The History, Theology, and Psychology of Eucharistic Devotion (Huntington, Ind.: Our Sunday Visitor, 1997), p. 15.

  55. John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 10.

  56. MKD, Reflections on Religious Life (Bensalem, Pa.: Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, 1983), p. 21.

  57. MKD: “O Jesus, I adore you in the Host of exposition. This act of adoration is no trivial act, but will certainly sanctify and transform my soul. I adore your heart, which desires me to unite myself to your sufferings.” Ellen Tarry, Saint Katharine Drexel: Friend of the Oppressed (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 2000), p. 148.

  58. Joseph Ratzinger, The Ratzinger Report: An Exclusive Interview on the State of the Church, with Vittorio Messori, trans. Salvator Attanasio and Graham Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1986), p. 133.

  59. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Some Aspects of the Church Understood as Communion (Boston: St. Paul Books and Media, 1992), p. 5.

  60. Congregation, Some Aspects of the Church, p. 4.


  61. Karol Wojtyla, Faith according to St. John of the Cross (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1981), p. 50.

  62. Vatican Web site.

  63. John Paul II, Christifideles Laici, 32.

  64. John Paul II, Homily, April 4, 2004.

  65. John Paul II, Redemptor Missio, 62.1, emphasis mine.