Sr. Mary Lange, the foundress of the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the first-ever Catholic religious order for women of African descent, is one step closer to canonization in the Roman Catholic Church.
The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints promulgated six decrees on Thursday, June 22, recognizing the “heroic virtues” of five people and the martyrdom of 20 others who were killed in Spain in 1936.
Among those recognized for their “heroic virtues” was Servant of God Mary Lange — who will be known now as “Venerable Mary Lange,” according to Vatican News.
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The Oblate Sisters of Providence have been in the news lately. Sr. Wilhelmina Lancaster, a Catholic nun buried in Gower, Missouri — and recently found not to have decomposed in the four years since her death — was initially a member of the Oblate Sisters of Providence before forming the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles.
Born Elizabeth Lange in the late 18th century in Cuba, Lange moved to the United States sometime in the early 1800s, said the website for the Oblate Sisters of Providence.
In 1813, she arrived in Baltimore, which would become her home for the rest of her life.
“Elizabeth came to Baltimore as a courageous, loving and deeply spiritual woman. She was a strong, independent thinker and doer,” the website also noted.
As a well-educated person, it did not take Lange long “to recognize that the children of her fellow immigrants needed an education,” the site also said.
At the time, there was no free public education available for African American children in Maryland, the website also said.
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To fill this void, Lange and Maria Balas, who shared Lange’s home, started a school in that home in Baltimore’s Fells Point neighborhood.
After roughly a decade of operating the school with her best friend, Lange was approached by Fr. James Hector Joubert, a Sulpician priest.
Joubert himself realized that the Haitian refugee children he ministered to were unable to read and had heard about the school for Black children that Lange and Balas had started.
Joubert asked the two if they would be interested in founding a religious sisterhood with the aim of educating and caring for Black children. They accepted his idea.
“After adding two more women, Rosine Boegue and American-born Theresa Duchemin, they began studying to become sisters and opened a Catholic school for girls in their convent at 5 St. Mary’s Ct. in Baltimore,” said the website for the Oblate Sisters of Providence.
That school became known as St. Frances Academy, still operating today in Baltimore.
The sisterhood was eventually expanded out into a religious congregation, which became the Oblate Sisters of Providence.
“Father Joubert would provide direction, solicit financial assistance and encourage other ‘women of color’ to become members of this, the first congregation of African American women religious in the history of the Catholic Church,” said the Oblate Sisters of Providence.
At the time, Black men and women were not able to enter religious life in the United States, said the website.
Lange and three other women professed vows on July 2, 1829, becoming the first four Oblate Sisters of Providence.
The formation of a religious congregation for African American women came nearly three decades before the ordination of the first priest of any African American descent, and almost six decades before the ordination of the first priest widely acknowledged to be of African American heritage.
Bishop James A. Healy, the first priest and bishop in the United States of known African descent, was ordained in 1854.
Healy’s mother was a mixed-race enslaved woman and his father was an Irishman — and he largely hid his background and passed as a White man, notes the New England Historical Society.
Ven. Augustus Tolton, a former slave who was the first American priest publicly acknowledged as Black, was ordained in 1886, says the Archdiocese of Chicago’s website.
Lange, who took the religious name “Mary,” served as the first superior general of the Oblate Sisters of Providence from 1829 until 1832.
She again led the congregation from 1835 to 1841, says the website.
“This congregation would educate and evangelize African Americans. Yet they would always be open to meeting the needs of the times,” said the Oblate Sisters of Providence.
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“Thus the Oblate Sisters educated youth and provided a home for orphans. Slaves who had been purchased and then freed were educated and at times admitted into the congregation. They nursed the terminally ill during the cholera epidemic of 1832, sheltered the elderly, and even served as domestics at Saint Mary’s Seminary.”
Lange died on Feb. 3, 1882, at Saint Frances Convent in Baltimore.
More than a century after her death, her influence continues to be felt among Baltimore’s Catholic Community.
The Oblate Sisters of Providence still exist as an organization, and, in 2019, the Archdiocese of Baltimore announced its first new school in Baltimore City in 60 years, which would be called “Mother Mary Lange Catholic School.”
The school primarily serves students who live in Baltimore’s Poppleton neighborhood, says the Archdiocese of Baltimore.
Most students are not Catholics — and nearly all receive some form of tuition assistance.
Lange’s cause for canonization, or the official process of being recognized as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church, began in 1991, says the Archdiocese of Baltimore.
While “all Christians are called to be saints,” according to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) website, “saints are persons in heaven (officially canonized or not), who lived heroically virtuous lives, offered their life for others or were martyred for the faith, and who are worthy of imitation.”
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After a person dies, there is typically a five-year waiting period before the process toward canonization begins, says the USCCB.
Once the person has been approved by the Vatican and determined to have lived a holy life, the person is declared “Venerable,” according to the Vatican’s website.
After this step, the Vatican has to approve of a miracle attributed to the intercession of the potential saint.
Typically, this miracle involves a medical healing that cannot be explained otherwise by science.
Once the supposed miracle has been submitted for investigation to the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, scientists and doctors investigate it.
After that, they vote on whether the alleged miracle can be explained by science, the Vatican website says.
After one miracle is attributed to the person, that person is beatified and known as “Blessed.”
A second miracle is required for canonization.
