In 1975, the U.N.’s International Women’s Year, Pope Paul VI canonized Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton as the first American-born Saint of the Catholic Church. To mark the 50th anniversary of this extraordinary event, the Sisters of Charity of New York are pleased to share with you a new video: “Elizabeth, the New Yorker.”
Elizabeth was born in New York in 1774 on the brink of the American Revolution. Here she married, bore five children, worshipped as an Episcopalian, visited poor women and children, and saw her doctor-father treat desperate immigrant families. Elizabeth returned to New York after her husband’s death in Italy, and – in a city not hospitable to Catholics – she chose to become one of them. She spent almost 34 of her 46 ½ years in New York before moving to Maryland.
In 1809, Elizabeth Seton founded the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph’s, the first women’s religious community begun in the United States, in Emmitsburg, Maryland. Eight years later she sent three Sisters back to her ”native city”– New York.
Here the Sisters of Charity have remained. With our lay colleagues and partners in ministry, we teach, heal bodies, minds and spirits, provide social services, serve those living in poverty, work for a just society, and care for God’s creation.
Thank you for allowing us to live Christ’s mission of love among you, and for sharing in that mission with us. Please join the Sisters of Charity and our Associates as we celebrate Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, daughter of New York and citizen of the world.
