Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton

Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Foundress and Educator Elizabeth Ann Bayley was born on August 28th of Richard, but when a yellow fever epidemic broke out on 1774 in New York City, one year before the outbreak of Stanton Island, her father become involved in the care of the American Revolutionary War. Her Father, Dr. the infected, and subsequently Elizabeth and her Richard Bayley, was a prominent surgeon in New York, daughters accompanied William to Italy at his doctor’s and was married to Catherine Charlton, Elizabeth’s recommendation so he could benefit from the warmer mother. Both families were from the earliest settlers of climate. At Leghorn however, fearing they may be the New York Area. Catherine was the daughter of a suffering from the yellow fever which had broken back priest of the Church of England, and Richard was home, the family was quarantined for a month, and descended from both English and French Huguenot William died on December 27th, 1803. Elizabeth and her protestants. daughter Anna Maria stayed for a time with her husbands Elizabeth was the second child of her family, and business fried Filippo and Antonio Filicchi, through in 1777, her mother passed away giving birth to her whom she became acquainted with Catholicism. younger sister Catherine, who died the following year. Upon her return to New York, to support herself, Following her mothers death, Elizabeth was raised in Elizabeth opened an academy for young ladies, while she what would become the Episcopal Church by her father. began to explore and be drawn in by the Catholic faith. Her father went on to marry Amelia Barclay in order to On March 14, 1805, Elizabeth entered the Catholic provide for his two daughters. Amelia would take Church at St. Peter’s, the only Catholic Church in New Elizabeth with her, participating in the church’s social York at the time after the anti-Catholic laws had been ministry to visit the poor and distribute food. During this lifted a few years earlier. A year later she received the time the Revolutionary War came to an end in 1783 sacrament of Confirmation from Bishop John Carroll, the followed several years later by the ratification of the U.S. only Catholic Bishop in the United States. Constitution in 1788. Richard and Amelia themselves When news of her conversion spread, most of the had five children together, but they would eventually young girls who attended her academy were withdrawn separate, and Amelia rejected both Elizabeth and her older by their parents. Considering moving to Canada, she met sister. The girl’s went to live with their paternal uncle Father Louis Dubourg, a member of the Sulpician Fathers, William, and his wife Sarah. who had fled to the United States to escape the Reign of In 1794, at the age of 19, Elizabeth married Terror in France. Father Louis was working to found a William Seton in a ceremony which was presided over by seminary in the United States and wished to found a the first Episcopal bishop of New York, Samuel Provoost. religious school to meet the educational needs of the William, who was 25, as the owner of an import trade Catholic Community in the United States. In 1809, business with his father, was considerably wealthy despite Elizabeth accepted the invitation of the Sulpicians and the disputes between the United States and France over moved to Maryland where she established Saint Joseph’s the 1778 Alliance and Commerce Treaties between the Academy and Free School, which was dedicated to the two. William and Elizabeth soon after purchased a fine education of Catholic girls. house on Wall Street and began attending the Trinity In July, Elizabeth founded the Sisters of Charity Episcopal Church nearby. Along with her sister-in-law, of Saint Joseph in Emmitsburg which was dedicated to Elizabeth continued her former ministry she had carried caring for the children of the poor. This congregation was on with her step-mother, caring for the sick and dying, and the first founded in the United States, and the school it eventually became a charter member of the Society for the operated was the first free Catholic School in the country, Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children. beginning the Catholic parochial school system in the Following the trade disputes between the United United States. In 1811, the sisters adopted the rules used States and France, France had begun to engaged in a war by the Daughters of Charity which had been founded in with Britain and as a result, seize trade ships to that France by Saint Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marillac. country. The United States responded by suspending Elizabeth Ann Seton spent the rest of her life repayment on French loans from the Revolutionary War. leading and developing the new congregation. Elizabeth In 1798 a quasi-war broke out between the United States Ann Seton died on January 4, 1821 at the age of 46. She and France, and the United Kingdom’s blockade of was canonized by Pope Saint Paul VI in 1975, and her France resulted in the loss of many of William Seton’s feast day is January 4th. She is the patron saint of Catholic ships and forced the family into bankruptcy. The Seton’s Schools, seafarers and widows. lost their home and the stress of the situation caused the mild tuberculosis from which William suffered to worsen. Elizabeth took their children and moved in with her father .

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