Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, S.C. | |
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Saint, Foundress, and Educator | |
Born |
New York City, Province of New York, British America |
August 28, 1774
Died | January 4, 1821 Emmitsburg, Maryland, United States |
(aged 46)
Venerated in | Roman Catholic Church, Episcopal Church (United States) |
Beatified | March 17, 1963, by Pope John XXIII |
Canonized | September 14, 1975, by Pope Paul VI |
Major shrine | National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, Emmitsburg, Maryland (where her remains are entombed); Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton at 9 State Street in New York City (site of her former residence) |
Feast | January 4 |
Patronage | Catholic Schools; Shreveport, Louisiana; and the State of Maryland |
Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton, S.C., (August 28, 1774 – January 4, 1821) was the first native-born citizen of the United States to be canonized by the Roman Catholic Church (September 14, 1975). She established the first Catholic girls' school in the nation in Emmitsburg, Maryland, where she also founded the first American congregation of religious sisters, the Sisters of Charity.
Elizabeth Ann Bayley was born on August 28, 1774, the second child of a socially prominent couple, Dr. Richard Bayley and Catherine Charlton of New York City. The Bayley and Charlton families were among the earliest European settlers in the New York area. Her father's parents were French Huguenots and lived in New Rochelle, New York. As Chief Health Officer for the Port of New York, Dr. Bayley attended to immigrants disembarking from ships onto Staten Island, as well as cared for New Yorkers when yellow fever swept through the city (for example, killing 700 in four months in 1795). Dr. Bayley later served as the first professor of anatomy at Columbia College. Her mother was the daughter of a Church of England priest who served as rector of St. Andrew's Church on Staten Island for 30 years, and Elizabeth was raised in what would eventually become (in the years after the American Revolution) the Episcopal Church.