Mother Angelica

American nun and television broadcaster

• Born: April 28, 1923
• Place of Birth: Canton, Ohio
• Died: March 27, 2016
• Place of Death: Hanceville, Alabama

A cloistered, contemplative nun, Mother Angelica founded the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), the largest religious cable broadcasting network in the world. Traditional, earthy, and charismatic, she was abbess of a monastery, founder of two other religious communities, builder of the imposing Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament, and daily inspiration for millions of television viewers. Angelica is one of the most recognized Roman Catholic figures of the late twentieth century.

Early Life

Mother Angelica (an-JEHL-ih-kah) was born Rita Antoinette Rizzo in the industrial town of Canton, Ohio, the only child of John and Mae Rizzo. When Angelica was six years old, her father deserted his family and left Mae to raise her in straitened circumstances. They alternated living with Mae’s parents, the Gianfrancescos, and in shabby apartments. In 1931, Mae’s divorce from John was finalized, which made Angelica the target of shame in the Roman Catholic schools she was attending. Although Mae resumed her family name of Francis, she had difficulty finding employment and was subject to bouts of suicidal depression.

When she was eighteen years old, Angelica had stomach spasms that made eating difficult. Nevertheless, she graduated from high school and gained employment; her abdomen was found to be distended. On January 8, 1943, Mae brought Angelica to see Rhoda Wise, a local Catholic mystic and purported healer and stigmatist. After Angelica prayed a nine-day novena prescribed by Wise, she claimed that her stomach ailment was cured. Angelica became devoted to the mystic, believing that through Wise’s efforts she had not only become healed but, as Angelica wrote in a letter, she had been converted from “a lukewarm Catholic” to one so in love with Jesus “that there are times when I think I will die.” She embarked on an intense program of devotions and began discerning a religious vocation. On August 15, 1944, without her mother’s knowledge, Angelica joined the contemplative Franciscan order, the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration, in an enclosed monastery in Cleveland. (Mae would eventually join the Franciscan Poor Clares herself, and become a nun in her daughter’s monastery.)

Life’s Work

Angelica had found her life’s work as a cloistered nun, but her influence would extend far beyond the walls of the enclosed community. Initially, her vocation to religious life as a nun was questioned, as she was querulous, strong-minded, and sickly in body. Her perseverance impressed the sisters, however, and on November 8, 1945, she became a novice, taking the name Mary Angelica of the Annunciation. In 1950, Sister Angelica became one of the first nuns in the new Sancta Clara monastery established in Canton, Ohio, which pioneered outreach to the black community. Inspired by this work, Sister Angelica began dreaming of a new monastery to be located in the Deep South.

Despite back pain that necessitated surgery and wearing a brace, Angelica was appointed novice mistress, received the official title of “Mother,” and began leading the effort to start a monastery in Birmingham, Alabama. As she raised money, Mother Angelica’s entrepreneurial skills emerged, launching the sisters into business selling homemade fishing lures and home-roasted peanuts. On May 20, 1962, the new Our Lady of the Angels Monastery was dedicated with Mother Angelica as abbess and four sisters in cloister. Almost immediately, the sisters began selling recordings of Angelica’s inspiring talks to the public. Over the next decade, Angelica’s talks, both live and recorded, increased in popularity. In 1971, she began offering her talks on a weekly radio station. She also became a prolific author of booklets. By 1976, the monastery had installed a print shop to publish Angelica’s fifty-seven spiritual booklets. Her compendium, Mother Angelica’s Answers, Not Promises , would become a religious best seller when published in 1987. Even the onset of heart problems did not slow her pace.

On March 9, 1978, Angelica announced to her startled sisters that the monastery would establish a satellite studio in its garage to branch into television. This was the beginning of EWTN, or the Eternal Word Television Network, which was formally launched on August 15, 1981. Featuring Angelica’s earthy, homespun talks and spirituality, EWTN produced a range of programs that appealed to both an intensely Catholic and a widespread ecumenical audience. EWTN’s mission was to “communicate the teachings and the beauty of the Catholic Church and to help people grow in their love and understanding of God and His infinite mercy.” Constantly one step ahead of mounting bills and debts, Angelica steadily expanded her studio, her programming, and her outreach.

In 1985, EWTN was carried on 220 cable systems and reached up to 2 million homes; by 1988, EWTN was reaching 12 million homes and was the fastest growing religious cable network in the nation. EWTN’s growth brought it into apparent competition with the Catholic Telecommunications Network (CTNA) sponsored by the Conference of United States Bishops. In 1995, CTNA was liquidated after losing $14 million; that year, EWTN broadcasted to an international audience, and it reached forty million households. Further antagonizing several bishops, Angelica made charges of doctrinal deviation, liturgical abuse, and moral laxity. Her most notorious dispute was with Cardinal Roger Mahony (of the Los Angeles archdiocese) in 1997, when Angelica called his pastoral letter on the Eucharist insufficiently reverent. These tensions were of such concern to Angelica that in 2000 she resigned as chair of EWTN, transferring the network entirely to a lay board beyond direct episcopal control. Meanwhile, Angelica was overseeing completion of the $50 million Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament, the impressive new home for her religious community outside Birmingham. In the middle of these efforts, Angelica publicly prayed for healing with the Italian mystic, Paola Albertini; moments later she walked without the crutches and braces that she had been using since 1946. Angelica claimed this as another miraculous healing.

In the early years of the twenty-first century, EWTN would continue to grow, becoming the largest religious media organization in the world, transmitting twenty-four hours a day to more than 123 million homes in 140 countries on more than 4,800 cable systems, with an equally global outreach through radio, publishing, and the World Wide Web. Angelica remained the star of the network, preaching an intense and old-fashioned spirituality, criticizing liberalism, and displaying her own infirmities to console and encourage her audience.

In 2009 Pope Benedict XVI awarded Angelica and Deacon Bill Steltemeier, Chairman of EWTN's board of governors, the Cross of Honor (Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice), the highest honor bestowed by the Pope. By 2013, EWTN reached 225 million homes and continued to broadcast Mother Angelica Classics.

After suffering a stoke, Angelica died on March 27, 2016, at Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in Hanceville, Alabama. She was ninety-two.

In 2020, admirer Barbara Gaskell honored Angelica's life and legacy by opening the Mother Angelica Museum at the St. Raphael Center in Jackson Township, Ohio. The museum had developed out of Gaskell's Mother Angelica Tour, which Gaskell started in 2018.

According to the laws of the Catholic Church, Mother Angelica was eligible to be canonized for sainthood five years after her death. Since 2021, some of the faithful have been advocating for the local bishop from the Birmingham, Alabama, diocese to begin the process; however, as of 2024, that process had not begun.

Significance

Angelica was the most visible Catholic television personality since Bishop Fulton J. Sheen of the 1950s and one of the most recognizable religious figures in the world. A disabled, cloistered nun, with no college degree and a vow of poverty, she built a billion-dollar media network that influences the spiritual life of hundreds of millions of Catholics and other Christians. At the time of her death in 2016, EWTN News managing editor Raymond Arroyo said that she was the only woman in television history to found and lead a cable network for twenty years.

Angelica was known as much for her individual persona as for the size of her broadcasting network. As Cardinal J. Francis Stafford observed, “Mother Angelica represented the plain Catholic, who is 90 percent of the Church.” A charismatic nun in classical religious habit, Angelica speaks simply of faith, chastity, obedience to the pope, and devotion to the observances and beliefs of historic Catholicism.

Anecdotal, combative, humorous, although some labeled her cranky and cantankerous, Angelica became a unique television personality. Like Pope John Paul II before her, she used modern technology and media to preach a confident and traditional Catholic message. While denouncing secularism and feminism, she was herself an immensely powerful and successful woman who refused to show obeisance to bishops of the United States when she doubted their fidelity to Church teaching or the papacy. Like John Paul II, she embodied the message her global network was spreading, making use of her own infirmities and frailty to reinforce and emphasize Christian preaching.

Bibliography

Angelica, Mother. Mother Angelica’s Little Book of Life Lessons and Everyday Spirituality. Ed. Raymond Arroyo. New York: Doubleday, 2007. Print.

Angelica, Mother M., and Christine Allison. Mother Angelica’s Answers, Not Promises. San Francisco: Ignatius, 1996. Print.

Arroyo, Raymond. Mother Angelica: The Remarkable Story of a Nun, Her Nerve, and a Network of Miracles. New York: Doubleday, 2007. Print.

Arsena, Lauren."An Indelible Mark." Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word, 26 Mar. 2021, franciscanmissionaries.com/an-indelible-mark/. Accessed 21 Aug. 2024.

Carroll, Colleen. The New Faithful: Why Young Adults are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy. Chicago: Loyola, 2004. Print.

"EWTN Celebrates Mother Angelica's 90th Birthday." Catholic News Agency. CNA, 19 Apr. 2013 www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/27047/ewtn-celebrates-mother-angelicas-90th-birthday. Accessed 21 Aug. 2024.

Ferrara, Christopher A. EWTN: A Network Gone Wrong. Pound Ridge: Good Counsel, 2006. Print.

Gancarski, A. G. “Cable’s Catechism.” American Conservative, vol. 11, no. 1, Jan. 2012, p. 35. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=6b976416-2504-3e8e-8930-a90e0502f8bb. Accessed 21 Aug. 2024.

"Mother Angelica." Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament, www.olamshrine.com/about/mother-angelica. Accessed 6 June 2024.

O’Neill, Dan. Mother Angelica: Her Life Story. New York: Crossroad, 1986. Print.

Raphael, Sister M. My Life With Angelica. Birmingham: Our Lady of the Angels Monastery, 1982. Print.

Vitello, Paul. "Mother Mary Angelica, Who Founded Catholic TV Network, Dies at 92." The New York Times, 27 Mar. 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/03/29/us/mother-mary-angelica-who-founded-catholic-tv-network-dies-at-92.html. Accessed 21 Aug. 2024.

Warsaw, Michael P. “Contraception, Against Conscience.” The New York Times, vol. 161, no. 55689, Feb. 2012, p. 23. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=713b1e40-f0f7-3133-8b1f-6264365536cd. Accessed 21 Aug. 2024.