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Sunday, April 2, 2000

Area leader to attain sainthood
Drexel founded church for black Catholics
By Deborah Martinez
Caller-Times

John Kennedy/Caller-Times

Alclair Pleasant, 93, is the oldest living member of the Holy Cross Catholic Parish. Mother Katharine Drexel, the nun in the picture, is to be canonized at the Vatican on Oct. 1. She established several minority schools and missions, including Holy Cross Parish in 1917.

When Mother Katharine Drexel arrived in Corpus Christi in 1917 and established Holy Cross Parish, she created a safe haven for black Catholics throughout the city.
   But Mother Drexel, now on her way to becoming the second U.S.-born saint, inspired not only those in the area, but nationwide, too.
   Holy Cross was established on Black Street, known today as North Staples Street, and became home for families such as Alclair Pleasant's. As a 7-year-old in 1914, she was mesmerized by St. Patrick's Catholic Church on Lipan and Carancahua streets, but because she was black, she couldn't go inside.
   She and her sister would peek at the stately church through its tall fence, intrigued by the nuns who milled around in black and white cloaks. They wished they could be members of the all-white congregation.
   What Mother Drexel provided for her and others in the black community with Holy Cross was more like a home, said Pleasant. If it weren't for Catholicism and Mother Drexel, she said, her life couldn't have been complete.
   "Mother Drexel did this wonderful thing for us," said Pleasant, who remembers praying before Mother Drexel as a little girl in Catholic school at Holy Cross. "Catholicism made me understand God so much and put me in touch with who I was."
   Mother Drexel's story is one that needs to be heard by today's Americans, said Sister Grace Mary Flickinger, a nun in the New Orleans branch of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, the order that Mother Drexel established in 1891.

Associated Press file

Sister Katharine Drexel tends to children on the former campus of Xavier University in this 1920s file photo. She moved closer to sainthood Oct. 7, 1999, when a deaf boy's healing was attributed to her.

   Her generosity not only lifted the downtrodden but it helped the United States grow up, said Sister Flickinger. And maybe if Americans hear her story today, the United States can grow some more, she said.
   "Katharine Drexel walked with the poor," Sister Flickinger said. "Such things as racial prejudice would be foreign to a Katharine Drexel. She recognized we're all children of the same God. I think America needs to hear that message. Because we haven't come as far as we think in race relations."
   Because of Mother Drexel, Navajo Indian children at a New Mexico reservation in 1902 had access to a Western education at a boarding school.
   Because of Mother Drexel's generosity, schools such as New Orleans' Xavier University, the only university in the country built for black Catholics, was launched in 1915.
   And, legend says, because of prayers to Mother Drexel, two deaf people were healed.
   The first healing was enough for Pope John Paul II to formally bless her in 1988, proclaiming her a person to be venerated. Then in 1994, after a toddler born deaf reportedly was healed because of prayers to Mother Drexel, she became eligible for sainthood.
   So at the dawn of the 21st century, 100 years after she began her mission, the pope recognized Mother Drexel as a saint, which by the church's definition is someone who lived a holy life, is in heaven, and is to be honored by the universal Church.
   'A better life'
   She will be officially canonized Saint Katharine Drexel during a Mass at the Vatican on Oct. 1, more than 40 years after her death.
   "She was quite a force throughout the country, and maybe even internationally, for blacks to eventually have a better life," said Charles Whitson, a 78-year-old retired schoolteacher who moved from Memphis in 1950. "Catholics treated me well. It is and was such a nice community."
   Faith and fortune
   When Mother Drexel left her childhood home in Pennsylvania to travel to the southwestern American Indian reservations and rural and urban boroughs of the Deep South, she brought more than her $20 million fortune.
   The heiress turned nun spread her faith to every race and her love to every man and helped poise the black and American Indian communities for a brighter future, said Pleasant, who in 1918 was baptized at Holy Cross.
   Continuing prayer
   She's become an example and a source of strength for many in the black Catholic community, Pleasant said.
   "She's a role model in religion," Pleasant said. "She wanted to do things for people who needed help. Now that she's a saint, her faith and answers will grow. She prayed for black people, so that gives us someone special to pray to for the success of our church and for the continuation of it."
   Friend of God
   Canonization does not make a person a saint; it recognizes what God has already done, according to Catholic Online, a Web page and member of the Catholic Press Association.
   Catholics believe that saints are special friends of God, and by praying to one, they believe they're asking the saint for extra prayer, much like someone would ask a friend to pray for them in their time of need, Pleasant said.
   "My friends and family, when they are sick, ask me to pray for them," she said. "Well, if they feel my prayers will help them, how much better would it be for saints in heaven to pray for me? The saints are already there in heaven, with Jesus and God."
   Approving saints
   The Catholic Church has declared saints since the 10th century. For hundreds of years, starting with the first martyrs of the early Church, saints were selected by public acclaim.
   Though this was a more democratic way to recognize saints, some saints' stories were distorted by legend and some never existed. Gradually, the bishops and finally the Vatican took over authority for approving saints.
   In 1983, Pope John Paul II made sweeping changes in the canonization procedure.
   The process begins after the death of a Catholic whom people regard as holy, according to Catholic Online. Often, it starts many years after the candidate's death, to give a better perspective on the candidate.
   Holy declaration
   The local bishop investigates the candidate's life and writings for either heroic virtue or martyrdom. Then a panel of theologians at the Vatican evaluates the candidate. Their approval plays in the pope's decision to finally declare someone a saint.
   After Mother Drexel is canonized in October, members at Holy Cross Church, to which Mother Drexel continuously gave money for its upkeep until she died in 1955, will hold their own celebratory Mass.
   "It's interesting that someone touched our lives so much and made it a possibility for us to have a church and parish," said Monsignor Patrick Higgins, pastor at the church. "Our lives have been touched by a saint."
   Touched by a saint
   Mother Drexel's sainthood couldn't make her faithful love her any more. Lifelong Holy Cross member Carolyn Shaw said she has always held Mother Drexel close to her heart.
   "You don't think of anyone that close to you becoming a saint," Shaw, 52, said. "She cared about our people. We need to care about her."


Staff writer Deborah Mart¡nez can be reached at 886-3618 or by e-mail at martinezd@caller.com

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