Elizabeth Seton becomes a Catholic

Today marks the day in 1805 that Elizabeth Bayley Seton (1774-1821) was received into the Roman Catholic Church. Raised an Episcopalian in New York, her first serious encounter with Catholicism was during a trip that she, her husband, and her daughter made to Italy in 1803. After her husband’s death of yellow fever, she returned to New York. But her Italian sojourn increased her knowledge and appreciation of the Catholic faith, and she decided to become a Catholic. On March 14, 1805, she was received into the Church by Father Matthew O’Brien, Pastor of St. Peter’s Church on Barclay Street in Manhattan.