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Books Blog: Will the sun come out for Katharine Drexel?

In May, the Inquirer ran a story about the pending sale of the shrine to St. Katharine Drexel, located in Bensalem. Drexel died in 1955 and was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 2000; she is only the second American-born saint. For some insight into her life and her importance, I turned to local author Cordelia Frances Biddle, whose book, Saint Katharine: The Life of Katharine Drexel, was published in 2015.

Biddle has a particular interest in the life of Katharine Drexel. They are related: Drexel's first cousin, Emilie Drexel Biddle, was Biddle's great-grandmother. Because of the connection, Biddle went to Rome to attend Drexel's canonization ceremony. She describes it as a life-changing moment.

Bad weather accompanied the ceremony. "The sky was pelting rain. My shoes were ruined," Biddle exclaims. But then everything changed. "When the Pope read out her name the skies not just cleared, it became bright sun and a rainbow shot across the sky. It sounds like I'm making it up. It was extraordinary. She was there. I've never seen anything like that. If you had seen this in a movie, you would have said: 'Really! I don't think so!' "

Biddle saw this incident as a message from God. "That's when I decided I had to write the book."

Biddle finds her ancestor tremendously inspiring, a remarkable woman: "She gave up a wealthy life in order to help people she felt had been hideously maltreated for centuries." Drexel took a vow of poverty and worked to establish schools for African American and Native American children. "She decided that she needed to address the needs of the poorest of the poor, which we all still need to focus on."

Biddle's previous books include the Victorian-era Martha Beale mysteries set in Philadelphia, but Drexel's story was too compelling to pass up for this self-avowed "research geek." She hopes that, through her book, she can encourage others to see the saint as a role model. "She was a very bold visionary woman," she says. "I think we still need people like that. In writing her history, it was a way of trying to encourage people to do the same that she did, in whatever field they choose."

As for the potential closing of the shrine, Biddle thinks it's a very sad thing. "It would be wonderful if they could find some buyer who could use it for hospice care or a hospital — a continuation of a ministry or a mission, rather than just turn it into a shopping development. Her shrine is a holy place. It doesn't matter what faith you are, you get up to that site and you know that it's holy." She also worries about what will happen to the Drexel archives, which she calls a treasure trove.

Next up for this writer: a biography of 19th-century financier Nicholas Biddle, another relative. No publication date is pinned down yet. Of her research for that book, she says: "I'm in 1814, but he lived until 1844, so I've got a ways to go!"