Sister Marie Angela Natoli, 87, former general superior of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, died Nov. 13 at Camilla Hall Nursing Home in Immaculata, Pa.
Sister Marie Angela was born in Reading, Pa., the second of five children of Thomas J. and Mariana Stella Natoli. She pursued undergraduate studies at Immaculata University where she earned a bachelor’s degree in history and English. She earned a master’s degree in religious studies from Villanova University in 1973.
Sister entered the congregation in 1948, professed first vows in 1951 and made perpetual profession in 1954. She spent most of her years as a teacher, first in elementary school and then as a teacher of English, history and theology in various high schools in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and the Diocese of Allentown. In 1962 she was awarded the Valley Forge Freedom Foundation Teacher Award. Sister received an honorary doctoral degree from St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in 2000.
She served as the directress of formation in the IHM Novitiate in Santiago, Chile, and as a participant in the establishment of Villa Maria Junior College in Lima, Peru. The Latin American missions remained close to her heart throughout her life.
From 1988 to 1994, Sister Marie Angela held the position of Sister Assistant to Mother Marie Genevieve Lawler, general superior. In 1994, she was elected to a six-year term as general superior of the congregation.
During her tenure as general superior, she called the sisters of the congregation to a deeper understanding of their charism and to their identity as women religious through their lives in community and in their ministries of Catholic education and pastoral work, particularly outreach to the poor.
At the completion of her term in 2000, Sister Marie Angela was appointed superior of Gillet Hall, the faculty residence for the teaching sisters at Immaculata University. She remained there until her retirement to Camilla Hall in 2012.
