Venerable Mary Elizabeth Lange

Life story

Elizabeth Lange was born in the Caribbean, in the 1780s or early 1790s: the Maryland State Archives gives about 1784 at Santo Domingo (Haiti), the Archdiocese of Baltimore about 1789, and other accounts say Cuba. According to the State Archives her family fled Haiti and she spent about three years in Cuba before reaching Baltimore in 1813, where many French-speaking refugees from Saint-Domingue had settled.

Seeing that children of colour lacked schooling, she and the Haitian refugee Marie Magdalene Balas ran a small school for Black girls from her home in the Fells Point area; it closed by 1827 for lack of money. The Sulpician priest James Joubert, himself a refugee from Haiti, then worked with her to found an order of women of African descent, and Archbishop James Whitfield approved it. On 2 July 1829 she and three other women took vows as the Oblate Sisters of Providence, and she became its first superior, taking the name Mary.

During the cholera epidemic of 1832 the sisters nursed the sick and dying in Baltimore almshouses and lost one of their number to the disease. She died on 3 February 1882 in Baltimore. Her cause for canonization was opened in 1991, and on 22 June 2023 Pope Francis declared her Venerable.

Works and witness

• Taught Black girls free in her own home in Baltimore with Marie Magdalene Balas
• Co-founded the Oblate Sisters of Providence with Father James Joubert; vows on 2 July 1829
• First superior of the first US congregation of women of African descent
• The sisters nursed the sick during the 1832 cholera epidemic
• Died on 3 February 1882; declared Venerable on 22 June 2023

Saints from the same country

Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, Saint Katharine Drexel, Blessed Solanus Casey

References

• Maryland State Archives, “Mary Elizabeth Clovis Lange (c. 1784–1882)” (msa.maryland.gov) – birth c. 1784 at Santo Domingo, Cuba, Baltimore 1813, Balas school, Joubert, Whitfield, 2 July 1829, cholera 1832, death 3 February 1882
• USCCB / Global Sisters Report / Catholic Telegraph coverage (June–July 2023) – decree signed 22 June 2023, cause opened 1991 by Cardinal Keeler (seen via search excerpts)
• Archdiocese of Baltimore, “Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange” (archbalt.org) – c. 1789 (page truncated on fetch; seen via search excerpt)

Written by Anawim from documented history. Some details about ancient saints rest on tradition and are marked as such.