Elizabeth Lange was born around 1794 in Santiago de Cuba. An educated woman, she left Cuba for Baltimore in the early 1800s. Since there was no free public education for African American children in Maryland, she opened a school in her home. At the behest of the Archbishop of Baltimore, Lange was approached with the idea of founding a religious congregation for the education of African American girls. On July 2, 1829, Lange and three other women professed their vows and became the Oblate Sisters of Providence — the first congregation of African American women religious in the history of the Catholic Church. Elizabeth, the foundress and first superior general, took the religious name Mary. The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine for the Causes of Saints approved the cause of her sainthood in 2004, and Pope Francis declared her venerable in 2023.
Julia Greeley was born into slavery in Hannibal, Missouri, between 1833 and 1848. Freed by Missouri’s Emancipation Act in 1865, Julia earned her keep by serving families in Missouri, Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico. Julia became Catholic at Sacred Heart Parish in Denver in 1880. She became an enthusiastic promoter of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She visited every fire station in Denver monthly — on foot — and delivered Sacred Heart League literature to Catholics and non-Catholics alike. A daily communicant, Julia had a deep devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and the Blessed Virgin Mary. She joined the Secular Franciscan Order in 1901 and was active in it until her death in 1918. As part of the ongoing cause for her canonization, Julia’s mortal remains were transferred to Denver’s Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception on June 7, 2017.
— U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the National Black Catholic Congress
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