Advertisement
“Being Catholic is an overarching, cross-racial identity. There is no outgroup in the Catholic Church,” said Kaye Crawford, who founded Black Catholic History.
Among the history revisited for Black History Month, Catholics would do well to recall that there are currently six African American Catholics who are on the path to sainthood.
Two centuries ago, Mary Elizabeth Lange (1789-1882) emigrated to the United States from Cuba and joined a friend to offer free education to Baltimore’s Black children. With the support of Baltimore Archbishop James Whitfield, she founded a school for “girls of color” and then the Oblate Sisters of Providence, a religious community for women of African descent. The cause for Mother Mary Lange’s canonization was introduced by Baltimore Cardinal William Keeler in 1991, and as a “Servant of God,” she has begun the first step on the road to canonization.