Posted December 2, 2015

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.

Her funeral Mass was celebrated Nov. 21 in Sacred Heart Chapel at Villa Maria House of Studies in Immaculata. The celebrant was the Rt. Rev. Richard J. Antonucci, O.Praem, Abbot of Daylesford Abbey; and the homilist was Redemptorist Father John M. Hamrogue of Immaculate Conception Parish, Bronx, N.Y.

Sister Marie Angela was born in Reading, the second of five children of Thomas J. and Mariana Stella Natoli. She entered the congregation in 1948, professed first vows in 1951 and made perpetual profession in 1954.

Sister Marie Angela ministered as a teacher, first in elementary school and then as teacher of English, history, and theology in various high schools of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and the Diocese of Allentown. In 1962 she was awarded the Valley Forge Freedom Foundation Teacher Award.

Additionally, 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.

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. She was then appointed superior of Gillet Hall, the faculty residence for the teaching sisters at Immaculata University, and served there until her retirement to Camilla Hall in 2012.

Sister Marie Angela is survived by her sister Camellia R. Natoli of Reading, nieces and nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews.  She was predeceased by her parents Thomas J. and Mariana (Stella) Natoli, her brothers Salvatore J. and Charles T., and her sister Sebastiana (Leonard) Smolinski.