‘Venerable’ Mother Lange witnessed to Christ uplifting Black women and girls

Little is known about the early life of Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange, whom Pope Francis declared “venerable” June 22. However, it is possible she may become one of the United States’ first Black Catholic saints.

Likely of what today is Haitian ethnicity, Mother Lange — born Elizabeth Clarisse Lange — emigrated from Cuba shortly after the War of 1812 and made her way to Baltimore, where she ran a school for African-American children in her home. Sulpician Father James Joubert had been instructing Sunday school for Black Catholic children and recognized that many of them, particularly girls, were unable to read or write.

Because of this, he sought to open a school for girls and asked Mother Lange and another woman to operate the school and start a religious order to staff the school. With that, the Oblate Sisters of Providence were born in 1829. Under Mother Lange’s leadership, their mission grew from running schools to offering career development classes for women and operating homes for widows and orphans.

At the time, Maryland was a state where legalized slavery of Black

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Americans had also infected the Catholic Church. In 1838 — at the same time Mother Lange was giving authentic witness to Jesus Christ’s Gospel by carrying out her educational ministry to Black young people — to save Georgetown University from bankruptcy, the Maryland Jesuits sold 272 Black Catholics, enslaved to them, to plantation owners in Louisiana.

Slavery would be abolished in Maryland officially only in 1864, during the U.S. Civil War, under a new state constitution. It would take another century of struggle, however, for Black Americans to achieve legal equality in the state.

Mother Lange died in her 90s on Feb. 3, 1882, at St. Frances Academy in Baltimore, which she founded. The school today is owned and operated by the Oblate Sisters of Providence.

“Mother Mary Lange practiced faith to an extraordinary degree,” Mother Lange’s official sainthood cause website states.

“In fact, it was her deep faith which enabled her to persevere against all odds.

To her Black brothers and sisters she gave of herself and her material possessions until she was empty of all but Jesus, whom she shared generously with all by being a living witness to his teaching.”

In 1991, Cardinal William Keeler of

Baltimore opened an investigation into Mother Lange’s life. In 2004, documents describing Mother Lange’s life were sent to the Holy See, and the then-

Mother Mary ELizabeth Lange is one of six Black American Catholics who have been declared venerable or whose causes are under investigation as servants of God. The others who have been declared venerable are Mother Henriette Delille, a free woman of color who founded the Sisters of the Holy Family in New Orleans; Father Augustus Tolton, the first publicly recognized AfricanAmerican priest ordained for the U.S. Catholic Church; and Pierre Toussaint, a Haitian American brought to New York City under slavery, who became a free man, hairdresser and philanthropist known for his generosity. Those denoted servants of God are Sister Thea Bowman, the first African-American member of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration and founder of the Institute for Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans; and Julia Greeley, known as the city of Denver’s “Angel of Charity.” u’People are suffering from trauma’; multifaith event panel highlights need for solidarity with refugees, displaced people. To minister to those whose lives have been changed by displacement, faith organizations need to collaborate, make connections and advocate for lasting solutions, said a panel of experts at a multifaith event for World Refugee Day. The June 20 livestreamed event in Washington, D.C., was moderated by Bishop Mariann Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees now estimates that by the end of this year, the total number of displaced persons will be 117 million. “These numbers are staggering and unacceptable,” Matt Reynolds, of UNHCR, said. But “while numbers can provide uU.S. Bishops overwhelmingly approve 10-year plan to address pastoral needs of Hispanic Catholics. The U.S. bishops approved a new National Pastoral Plan for Hispanic/Latino Ministry to multiply pastoral responses addressing the realities of close to 30 million Catholics. On June 16, with 167 supporting votes out of 171, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops resoundingly approved a comprehensive 10-year plan aimed at responding to the needs of Hispanic/Latino Catholics in the U.S. and strengthening Hispanic/ Latino ministries across the country at the national, local and parish level. The last time the U.S. bishops put forth such a plan was in 1987. The priorities listed in the plan include ongoing formation, accompaniment of families, immigration and advocacy, care for those on the peripheries, the promotion of vocations, and the need to engage with youth and young adults. uUSCCB approves plan to revise medical guidelines for transgender patients at Catholic health facilities. June 16, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops authorized a process to revise part three of the “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services,” which concerns the relationship between Catholic health professionals and their patients and patient rights. The doctrine committee would seek to incorporate into the ERDs a doctrinal note released March 20 that dealt with transgender chemical and surgical interventions, which the note stated did not accord with “the fundamental order of the human person as a unity of body and soul, including the sexual difference inscribed in the body.”

Congregation for the Causes of Saints approved the cause for her sainthood. “Venerable” is a declaration of a sainthood candidate’s heroic virtues. Next would come beatification. The third step is canonization, or sainthood.

— OSV News