Archbishop's web site Denver Catholic Register Parishes Catholic Pastoral Center
September 12, 2001
Black Catholics to honor St. Katherine Drexel
Claver group pledges $300,000 to build center in New Orleans
PHOENIX, Ariz. — The Knights Of Peter Claver and its Ladies Auxiliary have pledged to contribute $300,000 toward the construction of the Saint Katherine Drexel Religious Center on the campus of Xavier University in New Orleans.
Judge Arthur C. McFarland of Charleston, S. C., the Supreme Knight of the Order, announced that the gift had been authorized by the Order's National Board of Directors during the annual convention held in Phoenix.
McFarland pointed out that Saint Katherine Drexel had assisted the Order of St. Peter Claver during her lifetime by paying the salary of the organization's first executive director.
Norman C. Francis, president of Xavier University, was the keynote speaker for the convention. He pointed out that "while there are many Catholic colleges in the United States named after saints, Xavier is the only one to be founded by a saint."
Judge McFarland said the $300,000 contribution will be made in installments over a four-year period on contributions from individual Knights and Ladies.
Katherine Drexel was a wealthy Philadelphia socialite who decided to expend her vast fortune on building schools and other facilities for Native Americans and African-Americans. She became a nun and founded an order of religious sisters which staffed many of the schools she built. She died in 1955 and was canonized by Pope John Paul II last year.
The celebration of Mass on Sunday, Aug. 5, opened the convention. The Most Rev. Tomas J. O'Brien, Bishop of Phoenix, was the celebrant with the Most Rev. George Murry, S.J., Bishop of St. Thomas and National Chaplain; the Most Rev. Curtis Guillory, S.V.D., Bishop Beaumont; and the Most Rev. Dominic Carmon, S.V.D., Auxiliary Bishop of New Orleans, as concelebrants.
The opening session of the convention followed on Monday, and for the remaining two days delegates received reports from 12 joint committees: Emerging Leaders, Peter Claver Foundation, Grand Knights and Grand Ladies, Technology, History, Charity, Sickle Cell, Soaring High, Scholarship, United Negro College Fund, Vocations and Human Development.
The Order of Peter Claver was founded in Mobile, Ala., in 1909, and the Ladies Auxiliary and the Meritorious Fourth Degree became Divisions of the Order in 1926. For the next year, therefore, the Ladies Auxiliary and the Meritorious Fourth Degree will be celebrating their 75th anniversaries.
The order now has more than 700 subordinate councils and courts in 33 states and the District of Columbia, and during the convention Bishop O'Brien gave approval for the organization of a council and court in Phoenix.
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