Elizabeth Ann Seton

If the report is true, the Vatican has decided to canonize Elizabeth Ann Seton (or Isabel Anna Seton as reported in the despatches from Madrid, where the report originated). She will be the first American Saint.

Elizabeth Ann Bayley, born in 1774, was the daughter of the first professor of anatomy at Columbia College, the first health officer of New York City. Her parents were Protestant.

At the age of 20 she married W. Magee Seton, who subsequently went to Pisa, Italy, for his health. Soon after he died, leaving her with five children, she became a Catholic. She returned to New York. Her Catholicism ostracized her. She went to Baltimore and founded a school for girls, which later became the famous Sisters of Charity, at Emmetsburg, Md. She took vows and was three times chosen Mother of the Sisterhood.

In 1880 the late Cardinal Gibbons began to urge her canonization.

The Sisters of Charity was modeled after the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent, France. The Sisters embrace Charity, in whose arms they live and die. They vow chastity and bind themselves to obedience. They care for the sick and poor. Their dress is black, covered with a short cape. Their white muslin cap, with a crimped border, has a black crepe band, is fastened under the chin.