On the Path to Sainthood: Venerable Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange

She is one of the “Saintly Six,” Black Catholics on the path to sainthood.

In 2023, Pope Francis declared Mother Mary Elizabeth Clarisse Lange, founder of the Oblate Sisters of Providence (OSP), “venerable,” a step closer to her canonization.

In the 1950s, as a student attending All Saints Catholic School in Harlem (closed in 2011) and subsequently Cathedral High School in Manhattan, my instructors were members of the religious orders, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament and the Sisters of Charity, respectively. They were all white women.

I had no idea that congregations of African American nuns existed. In fact, there are three orders: the Franciscan Handmaids of the Most Pure Heart of Mary (founded in 1916), the Sisters of the Holy Family (founded in 1842), and the Oblate Sisters of Providence (founded in 1829).

Elizabeth Clarisse Lange (pronounced Lang or “Lahn jay”), was born in 1783 in Santiago de Cuba. Her mother, Annette Lange, was the daughter of a Jewish plantation owner and an enslaved woman; her father, Clovis Lange, was an enslaved mulatto living on the same plantation. During the country’s revolution, her family fled to the United States. According to historical records, her father had become “a gentleman of some financial means and social standing.”

By 1813, Elizabeth, free, educated, and fluent in French and Spanish, had settled in Baltimore, Maryland, a slave state, and a bustling port city on the Chesapeake Bay. Intensely spiritual, she believed that Providence had led her to the state. The city’s diverse population included native born white Americans, enslaved and free Blacks, Haitian refugees, and European immigrants.

Independent-minded and impassioned, Elizabeth took on the challenge of educating Haitian refugees, and free and enslaved Black people denied access to schooling under Maryland law. An inheritance from her father made it possible for her and a friend, Marie Magdalene Balas, to hold free classes in their home for ten years until they ran out of money.

Once again Providence intervened. In 1828, Reverend James Nicolas Joubert, S.S., with the approval of the Archbishop of Baltimore, approached Elizabeth with the idea of establishing a school for Black girls. She enthusiastically agreed and revealed to Rev. Joubert her longstanding desire to fully commit to the service of God. Hence, he urged her to establish a religious order to educate Black children, and committed to providing guidance, soliciting financial assistance, and encouraging other “women of color” to become members of the first order of African American nuns in the history of the Catholic Church.

The Maryland Women’s Hall of Fame noted, “On July 2, 1829, Elizabeth and three other women (Rosanne Boegue, Marie Balas, and an older student, Almaide Duchemin) pronounced promises of obedience to the Archbishop of Baltimore. Elizabeth, founder and first superior of the Oblate Sisters of Providence, took the name Mary. She was superior general from 1829 to 1832 and from 1835 to 1841.”

“Our sole wish is to do the will of God,” she said.

During the cholera epidemic of 1832, Mother Mary and three other Oblate Sisters cared for the sick and dying without pay or recognition. At a Mass held before they began their mission, Rev. Joubert said, “… I pointed out to them the dangers to which they were obliged to expose themselves in thus devoting themselves to the service of the sick poor. … I told them that if God permitted that they should be victims of their zeal, they would die martyrs of charity” One of the Oblate Sisters did succumb to cholera.

Under her unflagging dedication and leadership, the Oblate Sisters established St. Francis Academy in East Baltimore and an orphanage. According to the Black and Indian Mission Office, by 1860, the Oblate Sisters taught in all the Catholic schools for Black children in Baltimore and eventually founded schools in 15 states. They later conducted night classes for women, vocational and career training, and established homes for widows and orphans.

Despite these accomplishments, Mother Mary faced racism and poverty. Oftentimes she struggled to provide for the children. During such times, she worked as a domestic at St. Mary’s Seminary, took in washing and ironing, mended vestments, and begged and borrowed money.

Shannen Dee Williams, Ph.D., historian, professor and author of Subversive Habits: Black Catholic Nuns in the Long African American Freedom Struggle, a history of Black Catholic sisters in the United States stated, “… (T)he greatest weapon of white supremacy … (is) the ability to erase the history of its violence and its victim. If we’re talking about the Catholic church, if we want to understand the invisibility of Black sisters than we have to recon with this history of violence and the ways in which it … manifested itself in slavery, in segregation, but also in exclusionary policies and the mistreatment of Black people in Catholic spaces including religious life.”

Venerable Mother Mary Lange died on February 3, 1882. Her cause for beatification (the declaration of a deceased person as an officially recognized saint) was opened over a century later, in 1991, by Baltimore Cardinal William Keeler.

The next step toward sainthood is attributing a miracle to her intercession; a second miracle would be needed for her canonization.

Baltimore’s Archbishop William E. Lori said “I am … happy for the Oblates of Providence who have been praying and working fervently for the canonization of their beloved founder … an important step forward in the path towards her beatification. Let us continue to pray for her cause and ask her intercession for our needs.”

Wista JohnsonFebruary 24, 2025