When Sister Rita Michelle Proctor joined the Oblate Sisters of Providence more than 50 years ago, her idea was to follow in the footsteps of the order’s founder, Mother Mary Lange, the Black woman who founded a school for girls in the slave state of Maryland in 1828.
Proctor admired Lange’s courage, vision and faith that God will find a way to educate and bless all his children, whatever the prejudices of the day.
She has made a life expanding on that vision.
Proctor has challenged and improved generations of children in her roles as everything from a basketball coach and classroom teacher to a hard-driving principal in the city’s Catholic school system.
Eight years ago, she was elected superior general of the Oblate Sisters, the order of African American nuns Lange established in 1828. The school Lange created became St. Frances Academy, now the longest continuously operating Catholic school in America. That alone, Proctor says, suggests Lange is responsible for miracles — a prerequisite for anyone being considered for sainthood in Catholicism.
Proctor and the sisters are helping propel a global campaign to have their founder canonized. The case has even reached the Vatican, which has declared Lange “venerable,” a key step along a complicated road.
Proctor believes it will happen; she just doesn’t know when. And with her tenure as Oblates leader set to expire later this year, she’s awaiting her next call. “It’s in God’s hands,” she says.
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