Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (Emmitsburg)

The Story

The National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Emmitsburg, Maryland, honors the first native-born citizen of the United States to be canonized a saint. The shrine complex includes the Basilica of the National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, where her remains are entombed, along with historic buildings where she lived and worked in the final years of her life. Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton was born in New York City in 1774 and raised in the Episcopal Church. A wife and mother of five, she was widowed at twenty-nine when her husband died of tuberculosis in Italy. Moved by the faith of the Catholic families who cared for her there, especially their devotion to the Eucharist, she entered the Catholic Church in 1805, at great personal cost among family and friends. In 1809 she moved to Emmitsburg, where she founded the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph's, the first community of religious women established in the United States, and opened a free school for girls that helped lay the foundation of the American Catholic parochial school system. She died in Emmitsburg in 1821 at the age of forty-six. Elizabeth Ann Seton was canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1975. Today her shrine welcomes pilgrims to pray at her tomb, tour the historic Stone House and White House where she lived, and draw encouragement from a saint who knew marriage, motherhood, grief, conversion, and the founding of a great work of education and charity.

Church Recognition

Elizabeth Ann Seton was canonized by Pope Paul VI on September 14, 1975, becoming the first native-born United States citizen to be declared a saint; the shrine church in Emmitsburg was designated a minor basilica in 1991.

Catholic Teaching

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton's journey into the Catholic Church, drawn above all by faith in the Eucharist, speaks to the grace of conversion and the communion of saints (CCC 946-962), and her tomb invites the veneration the Church accords the relics of the saints (CCC 1674).

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Practical

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The National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Emmitsburg holds her remains.

Go Deeper

The Seton Shrine's official website, https://setonshrine.org, offers her biography, virtual tours, and pilgrimage planning; readers may also consult the Catechism on the communion of saints (CCC 946-962) and the many published collections of her letters and spiritual writings.