19751776 Club
Rome names the first native-born American saint
Pope Paul VI canonizes Elizabeth Ann Seton before a crowd in St. Peter's Square, calling her wholly American.
In St. Peter's Square on September 14, 1975, during the Holy Year, Pope Paul VI declared Elizabeth Ann Seton a saint of the Catholic Church. Born in New York City in 1774, Seton had founded the first Catholic girls' school in Emmitsburg, Maryland, and started the Sisters of Charity, the first native congregation of American religious sisters. The Pope told the crowd she sprang forth "as the first flower in the calendar of the saints." No American had ever been canonized before…
