diff --git a/package/CHANGELOG b/package/CHANGELOG
index a01407ba373..08850e068fa 100644
--- a/package/CHANGELOG
+++ b/package/CHANGELOG
@@ -25,6 +25,7 @@ Fixes
     next (Issue #869)
   * Display of Deprecation warnings doesn't affect other modules anymore (Issue #754)
   * Changed nframes to n_frames in analysis modules for consistency (Issue #890)
+  * Removed call to protected process_selection function in RMSD
   
 Changes
   * Added protected variable _frame_index to to keep track of frame iteration
diff --git a/package/MDAnalysis/analysis/rms.py b/package/MDAnalysis/analysis/rms.py
index 7b44115b259..1d2bb7e392c 100644
--- a/package/MDAnalysis/analysis/rms.py
+++ b/package/MDAnalysis/analysis/rms.py
@@ -338,9 +338,9 @@ def __init__(self, traj, reference=None, select='all',
             self.reference = self.universe
         else:
             self.reference = reference
-        self.select = _process_selection(select)
+        self.select = process_selection(select)
         if groupselections is not None:
-            self.groupselections = [_process_selection(s) for s in groupselections]
+            self.groupselections = [process_selection(s) for s in groupselections]
         else:
             self.groupselections = []
         self.mass_weighted = mass_weighted