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Two Chicago women on the road to sainthood By Michelle Martin How do you get to be a saint? Well, if the women with Chicago connections who have been canonized
or are in the sainthood process are any indication, it helps to
have founded a religious order. Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, who founded the Missionary Sisters
of the Sacred Heart and came to the United States with six sisters
in 1889, was canonized in 1946. Mother Katharine Drexel, who founded
the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament in Bensalem, Pa., in 1891,
was canonized Oct. 1. Both congregations have long histories in
Chicago, and Mother Cabrini died here in 1917. Two more Chicago-based congregations are promoting the sainthood
causes of their foundresses. Mother Mary Theresa Dudzik founded the Franciscan Sisters of Chicago
in 1894, when she was 34 years old. She had come to Chicago from
her native Poland 13 years before. She led the congregation until
1910 and died in 1918, after devoting her life to the care of
the aged, poor and disabled. She has already been declared venerable. Now her congregation is awaiting the certification of a miracle
needed for beatification, the next step on the path to sainthood,
according to Jo Ann Vitarello of the congregation’s development
office. The Sisters of St. Casimir also are promoting the cause of Mother
Maria Kaupas, their foundress. The Congregation for the Causes
of Saints has begun reviewing the record of her heroic and virtuous
life, said Sister of Saint Casimir Margaret Petcavage. If the
commission accepts the record, then it will be submitted to the
pope, and if he approves, Kaupas would be declared venerable. At the same time, the results of an eight-month investigation
into what could be a miracle attributed to Kaupas have been sent
to the Vatican. If Kaupas is declared venerable, and the evidence
of a miracle is accepted, Kaupas would be beatified. She could
be canonized after evidence of one other miracle, Petcavage said. The miracle attributed to Kaupas is the healing of a Sister of
St. Casimir diagnosed 21 years ago with acute myoblastic leukemia.
“She was supposed to die within three weeks, and she’s up and
around and working very hard today,” said Petcavage, adding that
there was no medical explanation for her cure. Kaupas founded the Sisters of St. Casimir in 1907 in Pennsylvania,
after first seeing nuns when she came to the United States with
her brother, a priest, from her native Lithuania. She founded
the congregation, rather than joining an established group, specifically
to serve Lithuanian immigrants in the United States, and the motherhouse
opened in Chicago in 1908. The congregation now operates in the
United States, Lithuania and in South America. Kaupas died of
bone cancer in Chicago in 1940. Petcavage said Kaupas has connections both to Mother Drexel and
to Mother Cabrini, the first saint from the Chicago area. All
were contemporaries, she said, and Kaupas kept a statue of Mother
Cabrini in her room. As to why the foundresses of religious congregations seem to move
to the front of the sainthood line, Petcavage said, it only stands
to reason.
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