Elizabeth Ann Seton: A Wholly American Saint

January 4, 2021, marked the two hundred anniversary of Elizabeth Ann Seton's death. On a homily celebrating the feast, Baltimore's Archbishop William Lori proposed that Seton would be an ideal patroness of the United States, joining Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, under whose patronage the Holy See had placed the nation in the mid-nineteenth century. This essay uses Lori's proposal as a springboard to explore both Seton's legacy and the relationship between sanctity and patriotism in the United States from the 1880s to the present. It argues that Seton's enduring appeal to Americans places her in a unique position in the canon of the saints.