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Article: Inspired by a saint.(St. Katharine Drexel)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- National Catholic Reporter
- Article date:
- April 6, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 National Catholic Reporter. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Leo Luke Marcello, professor and poet, can't remember precisely when or how St. Katharine Drexel won him over, but win him over she did.
Perhaps it started when he was a young boy and heard her name spoken around in De Ridder, La., where he grew up in a family of Sicilian immigrants. Katharine Drexel, the Philadelphia socialite who became a nun and a missionary, died when Marcello was 9.
Years before he was born, she had spent time in Louisiana building schools for black children. In New Orleans she founded Xavier University, the only historically black Catholic University. It was fundamental to her mission: using the fortune she inherited from her ...