The St Katharine Drexel Prep marching band at Mardi Gras in New Orleans Credit: roberto galan / Alamy In 1922, in Beaumont, Texas, the Ku Klux Klan posted a notice outside the church and new school built by Katharine Drexel. “We will not stand by while white priests consort with n----- wenches in the faces of our families. Suppress it in one week or flogging and tar and feathers will follow.” Days later, a tornado smashed the buildings used as Klan headquarters. The Klan never threatened the church in Beaumont again. I don’t think this incident contributed to Katharine Drexel’s canonisation in 2000. The congregation she founded in 1891 had been called the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People. Today, it is called the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, and still works with what it now calls black and Native American people.