June 9, 2020
By Paul McMullen/Catholic Review
Photos: Kevin J. Parks/CR Staff
Sister Rita Michelle Proctor is in the habit of taking a few turns out of the way on her afternoon commute from the motherhouse of the Oblate Sisters of Providence in Arbutus to the convent at St. Frances Academy in Baltimore, where she resides.
Slowing down near the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard with Lexington Street, the general superior of the Oblates checks on the progress of Mother Mary Lange Catholic School.
Its name honors an immigrant to Baltimore from the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, who in 1829 founded not only the religious order that Sister Rita Michelle leads, the first Catholic religious community of women of African-American descent, but the first Catholic school in the U.S. for black children, what became St. Frances Academy.
The Vatican is reviewing her cause for canonization.
“Every time I go by it,” Sister Rita Michelle said of the construction site, “I proclaim, ‘God is good.’ It’s a miracle, another way God has provided to us. Even though not all of our (OSP) members are here in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, it’s here that Mother Lange landed 191 years ago, with a special calling to educate children of color.
Full story at CatholicReview.org
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