Mother Angelica

The Reverend Mother Mary Angelica PCPA
Born	Rita Antoinette Rizzo (1923-04-20)April 20, 1923 Canton, Ohio, U.S.
Died	March 27, 2016(2016-03-27) (aged 92) Hanceville, Alabama, U.S.
Other names	Mary Angelica of the Annunciation
Occupation	Religious sister
Known for	Founding EWTN
Notable credit	Mother Angelica Live (1983–2001)[1][2]

Mother Mary Angelica of the Annunciation PCPA^[3] (born Rita Antoinette Rizzo; April 20, 1923 – March 27, 2016), commonly known as Mother Angelica, was an American Roman Catholic nun of the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration. She was best known for the television show Mother Angelica Live. She was the founder of the international broadcast cable television network Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) and the radio network WEWN. EWTN became a voice for Catholics worldwide.

In 1981, Angelica started broadcasting religious programs from a converted garage in Birmingham, Alabama. Over the next twenty years, she developed a media network that included radio, TV, and internet channels as well as print media. Angelica hosted shows on EWTN until she had a stroke in 2001. She continued to live in the cloistered monastery in Hanceville, Alabama, until her death in 2016.^[4]

Mother Angelica was born Rita Antoinette Rizzo on April 20, 1923, in Canton, Ohio,^[5] a little steel-producing town which attracted thousands of immigrants.^[6] Most of the town was pleasant and suitable to raise a family. Rita Rizzo, however, was born in southeast Canton, known as the red-light district or "the slums".^[6] This was home to Black Americans and to lots of Italian immigrants who worked in the Canton Mills.^[6] Italians were confined here by illiteracy and by constant tribute demanded by the Black Hand, a criminal organization with Sicilian roots.^[7] There was significant prostitution and corruption, mob slayings were common, while the Catholic priests at St Anthony's Church tried to encourage a better life among ordinary people.^[7]

Of Italian-American background, Rita Rizzo was the only child of John Rizzo, a tailor, and Mae Helen Rizzo (née Gianfrancesco). Rita Rizzo was born at 1029 Liberty, the sprawling home of Mary and Anthony Gianfresco, her maternal grandparents.^[7] 'Grandpa Gianfresco' had a saloon, where newly arrived Italian immigrants and their American relatives alike could drink and have lunch. Mae was a striking woman with good looks and a sense for fashion. However she was convinced that she had been cheated by life - she had been removed from school following an incident in fifth grade and felt she did not know enough, leaving deep scars on Mae.^[8][9] John Rizzo first came to the door to compliment her on her singing. Rita seized the opportunity and married John at age 22 against the advice of her parents who disliked John.^[10] John never wanted a child and 'flew into a rage' when he found out that Mae was pregnant.^[10] She was baptised at the age of five months. Mae carried her to the side altar of Our Lady of Sorrows and told her 'I give you my daughter'.^[11] John Rizzo was unable to make a good living. A house he rented was full of roaches including over herself. Mae scolded John and went to her parents for the night, which became a regular pattern.^[11] Marital problems were made worse when Mae invited John's mother Catherine Rizzo to stay, a big woman who was very critical of Mae. Eventually Catherine left.^[12] John Rizzo abandoned the family by November 1929, moving to California and completely out of contact.^[13][14] Mae and five-year old Rita had to move to the crowded Gianfresco home.^[15]

Anthony Gianfresco has emigrated from Naples, Italy to Colorado where he worked in a gold mine before he moved to Ohio and married Mary Votolato. ^[15] Mother Angelica remembered her grandfather providing Italian newcomers with clothes and helping them find work, and her grandmother would feed them . ^[15] On March 10, 1931, her mother was granted custody of her, and her father was ordered to pay five dollars a week in child support.^[16] Her mother only received "intermittent child-support payments from the father."^[17] While maintaining full custody, her mother struggled with chronic depression and poverty.^[18] This was in part because being a divorcée carried a social stigma at the time and the opportunities for a woman to secure income were limited especially in the height of the Great Depression.^[16]

Between 1933 and 1937 following disagreements with her brothers, Mae moved with Rita to a series of run-down one-bedroom apartments. The front end was for business, the back for sleeping. ^[16] At times Rita would stay with family friends if not getting on well with her mother. ^[16]

Looking back at her childhood, Angelica described herself and her mother as being "like a pair of refugees":^[14] "We were poor, hungry, and barely surviving on odd jobs until Mother joined the dry cleaning business as an apprentice to a Jewish tailor in our area. Even then, we pinched pennies just to keep food on the table."^[19] The pair lived with her maternal grandparents, moving out for a time between 1933 and 1937, but were forced to return because of financial pressures.^[20] Matters were complicated when her grandfather, Anthony Gianfrancesco, suffered a stroke in their absence, which paralyzed him on one side and required him to use a cane.^[21] Rizzo attended St Anthony's School, ^[22] but disliked the nuns there, whom she recalled as being "the meanest people on earth" and treating her with harsh discipline due to her parents' divorce.^{[14] [22]} Mae withdrew Rita from the school, at first temporarily; then permanently. ^[22]

From the age of fourteen, Rita attended Canton's McKinley High School, where she was one of the school's first drum majorettes.^[18] She later told an interviewer, "I did very poorly in school. I wasn't interested in the capital of Ohio. I was interested in whether my mother had committed suicide that day."^[17] Rizzo developed no intimate friendships in high school, partly because of her fear that it would further upset her mother, who saw other demands for attention as a threat.^[21] Rizzo never dated, recalling later, "I never had a date, never wanted one. I just didn't have any desire. I suppose having experienced the worst of married life, it was not at all attractive to me."^[23]

By the time Rita started high school, financial pressure obliged them to return to the Gianfresco home where two uncles and her grandparents were still in residence. ^[21] Anthony Gianfresco had suffered a stroke and this aggravated his hot temper. ^[21] However they had regular meals and a roof over their heads. ^[21] Rita tried to keep up with her school grades with mixed results. ^[21]

In 1939, Rizzo, feeling overwhelmed by crowd noise and school chatter, began to leave McKinley High in the afternoons.^[23] She was given calcium and nerve medication to treat what was deemed a nervous condition.^[23] When her mother's mental condition seemed to worsen, she made arrangements with her grandparents to have her sent to Philadelphia to be with a relative.^[24] Left behind with s feeling of guilt, Rita tried to maintain a normal routine, and earned some money baton-twirling. However she had a deep dread that her fortunes would not improve and her mother not recuperate.^[25] Rita gave baton lessons and worked in a factory that made liturgical candles and sent some money to her mother who remained in Philadelphia. ^[25] However Rita missed nearly two months school at the end of junior year and failed three subjects. She secretly began summer school without her mother knowing anything. ^[26] As a result she had to give up her role as drum majorette, which had given her confidence and ease with crowds. ^[27] Rita's mother was improved when she returned from Philadelphia and Rita arranged for her to sit the civil service examination to get a city job. Mae passed and in 1941 became a bookkeeper and brought Mae a sense of security and balance. ^[28] Rizzo graduated from McKinley High School in 1941.^[29]

In December 1940, Rita had an episode of abdominal pain and diarrhea. She remained unwell and in early 1941 was having spasms about three times a week. ^[30] The stomach disorder got worse and Rita's grandparents got her seen by their physician, Dr James Pagano, expected complications who treated her for possible ulcers or gallbladder problems. ^[28] The prescribed treatment did not help and by November she lost twenty pounds. X-rays done diagnosed stomach ptosis. ^[28] Treatment with a medical belt improved symptoms and made her life bearable. ^[28]

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Rita got a job in the advertising department of Tomkins Roller Bearing Company, a major producer of gun barrels, in early 1942. ^[28] As secretary to the vice president of advertising, Rita was very successful. ^[31] However in April 1942 her stomach pain got significantly worse, and was no longer controlled by her medical belt. Dr Wiley Scott prescribed a larger belt/corset and the pains subsided, allowing her to go back to work. ^[31] By November 1942 she could not sleep or eat and her surgical corset caused blisters. ^[31] Her mother found out about and took her to Rhoda Wise who was hailed as a mystic and stigmatic and "who claimed to receive visions of St Thérèse of Lisieux."^[17] Wise instructed Rizzo to pray a novena (a nine-day course of prayers) and made the girl promise that she would spread devotion to the saint if she was cured.

On January 17, 1943, following the novena's final day, Rizzo felt the "sharpest pains" she had ever had and "it seemed that something was pulling my stomach out". ^[32] She considered attaching the corset before rising but a voice commanded her to get up without it. She knew that she was healed. ^[32] The abdominal lump and discolouration had vanished.^[33] This experience profoundly touched her; she believed that God had performed a miracle and she traced her lifelong commitment to God to this event.^{[19][34][page needed][35]} She later told an interviewer "[at that point] I knew that God knew me and loved me and was interested in me. All I wanted to do after my healing was give myself to Jesus."^[17] Dr Wiley Scott did not support the healing and dismissed Rita as a "neurotic female with a mentality which is very open to any suggestive influence.". ^[33] For Rita the healing was a milestone that would entirely reorientate her life. ^[36] "I knew there was a God; I knew that God knew me and loved me and was interested in me. All I wanted to do after my healing was give myself to Jesus."^[36]

Rita turned to Rita Wise for guidance, and she became her model of sanctity. ^[36] Every Sunday the Rizzo joined the crowds at Wise's House and Rita would sit close to the mystic. She learned ti deal with overanxious crowds who at times mistook God's assistant from God himself. ^[36] Rita adopted devotional practices including fasting on Saturdays, reading spiritual literature, and performing the Way of the Cross at St Anthony's Church, developing a devotion to the Passion. ^[37] On a Fall afternoon in 1943 when Rita prayed before the statue of Our Lady of Sorrows, she was overcome by a "deep awareness " that she had a vocation and had to "go wherever the Lord would send her". ^[38] She sought out Monsignor Habig, Rhoda Wise's spiritual director who affirmed the vocation. ^[38] Rhoda gave her lists of communities to contact, but most would not accept her due to her poor grades.

Her first visit was to the Sisters of St. Joseph in Buffalo, New York. ^[38] Monsignor Habig then suggested she visit Saint Paul's Shrine of Perpetual Adoration, a facility operated by an order of cloistered contemplative Franciscan nuns, located in Cleveland, Ohio. ^[39] When visiting this order, she felt as if she were at home. The order accepted her as a postulant, inviting her to enter on August 15, 1944. ^[40] at the age of 21. ^{[40] [41]}

On November 8, 1945, Rizzo was vested as a Poor Clare nun. She received a new religious name, Angelica, which own mother Mae Francis was given the honour of choosing, in the gift of Mother Agnes. Mae chose the name because Rita had been an "angelic and obedient daughter". ^[42] She became "Sister Mary Angelica of the Annunciation". ^[42] Soon afterwards, the Cleveland monastery established a new monastery in her home town of Canton and she moved there.^[19]

After nearly three years in the monastery, Angelica made her first profession of vows on January 2, 1947.^[43] In 1953, she made her solemn profession of vows at Sancta Clara Monastery in Ohio.^[44]

In 1953, Sr. Angelica had an accident with an industrial floor-scrubbing machine that knocked her over and injured her spine, causing her ongoing pain and would later require her to wear leg braces for much of her life. The ache radiated from the small of her back to the middle of the left leg.^{[45] [46][47][48]} In June 1955 she sought medical review of her back pain and was given a brace to relieve the pain caused by the fall. The doctors believed the fall in 1953 had aggravated an existing spinal defect. She was fitted for a body cast to relieve her compressed spine and given oversized crutches.^[49] This failed and leg and neck traction were attempted and she hanged from a hospital-bed contraption for 6 weeks. She spent a total of four months in hospital with no improvement. ^[50] She went back to the monastery with a back brace. ^[50] To eliminate pain and restore posture her doctors decided on a spinal fusion operation. She was admitted to hospital for this in July 1956. ^[50] The surgeon, Dr Charles Houck informed Angelica that there was a "fifty-fifty chance you'll never walk again." ^[50] Angelica struck a bargain with God. "Lord, if you let me walk again, I'll build you a monastery in the South. For three years she had been discussing a southern monastery dedicated to blacks. This was the year that the Supreme Court banned segregation in public schools and Dr Martin Luther King Jr. made headlines by organising protests throughout the South. "^{[17] [51]} During the operation Dr Houck found an extra vertebra crowding its neighbours. The resulting "kissing vertebrae" were the main cause of her pain. The doctor apparently thought the surgery had gone wrong and gave up. Angelica could move her legs but not walk. She remained in hospital recovering for two months. Back at Santa Clara she was confined to the infirmary. As a result of suffering she learned to rely on God in all things. ^[52] Eventually she graduated from a wheelchair to a back brace, leg brace and crutch and she felt she could think about the new monastery. The new abbess of Santa Clara, Mother Veronica said no initially but was fully convinced gradually. ^[53] In January 1957 Mother Veronica wrote to Archbishop Thomas Toolen of Mobile, Alabama stating their desire to be in "the midst of the colored people to intercede for them. Archbishop Toolen warmly invited the nuns to the diocese and encouraged them to start the community in Birmingham, home to a quarter of a million black people. ^[54] Bishop Emmet Walsh of Youngstown delayed the foundation as he felt the departure of six nuns required by Church law could not be sustained by the community in Canton. By February 1961, funding had been secured and Rome granted permission to proceed with the new foundation. ^[55]

While at Sancta Clara, Angelica was inspired to create a religious community which would appeal to African Americans in the southern states and began to seek support.^[44] In 1957, Archbishop Thomas Toolen suggested that she open this community in Birmingham.^[44] With a number of other Poor Clare nuns she worked to raise the necessary funds, partially from a small business venture making and selling fishing lures.^[44] In 1961, the nuns bought a fifteen acres of mountain-side in Irondale, as well as an adjacent small house, ^[56] for thirteen thousand dollars, the exact amount earned by the nun's fishing lure business. ^[56]. On the night of February 21, 1962, five bullets were fired at the house the nuns were staying and a further incident with five bullets occurred nearly two weeks later. ^[57]. On May 20 1962, the community was officially established. ^[58] It was named Our Lady of the Angels Monastery.^[41] Later it was relocated to the grounds of the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament.^[59] The subject experienced the Baptism of the Holy Spirit which a Birmingham priest associated with the charismatic movement had told her about, which resulted in a new understanding of the Holy Spirit.^[60]

In August 1995, Angelica began to search for land to build a new monastery. She had a conviction that the sisters needed "protection " during a coming chastisement, and she was concerned that the noise around the existing monastery was not suitable for the contemplative life. ^[61] In October 1995 she viewed a two-hundred acre plot in Hanceville, an hour north of Birmingham. "I felt the Lord's presence so strongly" she said. ^[62] The architect was Walter Anderton, a Baptist. ^[62] The only instructions she gave was that the monastery resemble the basilica of St Francis in Assisi and have a 13th Century character. ^[62] In 1996, Angelica visited South America to publicise her new Spanish channel. ^[63]In Bogotá, Colombia, she visited a small shrine of the Divino Nino. Later she revealed that she had a vision where the statue turned to her and said with the audible voice of a child "build me a temple and I will help those who help you. ^[63] Following this Angelica decided that the Christ Child wanted an elaborate shrine. ^[64] Private donors contributed $48.6 million ^[64] and she opened the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Hanceville in 1999. ^[65]

In 1962, Angelica began a series of community meetings on matters relevant to Catholicism and also began recording her talks for sale. Bishop Joseph Vath noticed her talent for communicating with the lay public and encouraged her to continue; she began taping a radio show for broadcast on Sunday mornings and published her first book in 1972. In the late 1970s she began videotaping her talks for television, which were broadcast on the satellite Christian Broadcasting Network.^[35] In 1981, after visiting a Chicago television studio and being impressed by its capability, she formed the non-profit civil corporation to be called the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN).^{[44] [66]} Initially, she recorded her shows in a converted garage on the monastery's property.^[59]

On February 16 1981, the Sacred Congregation for Religious informed the local bishop, Joseph Vath, that Mother Angelica, as a cloistered nun, could not travel, other than to her studio. She had been giving talks outside for years with the bishops blessing. The nuncio suggested exclaustration (suspension from community and vows for three years), which shocked Angelica. ^[67] Cardinal Silvio Oddi, head of the Sacred Congregation for the Clergy rescued the situation; he visited Mother Angelica and secured the exemptions from Church law required for Mother Angelica to leave the monastery on business. ^[68]

EWTN became a voice for American conservatism and traditional Catholics, with its position on religious and social issues often mirroring that of Pope John Paul II.^[69] Angelica's emphasis on tradition led to feuds with some members of the Roman Catholic hierarchy. Most famous is the feud over a pastoral letter written by Cardinal Roger Mahony of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles over teachings surrounding the Eucharist and the liturgy.^[70]

The largest Roman Catholic television network in the world,^[71] EWTN estimates the network's channels reach 264 million households globally.^[72]

On December 28, 1992, Angelica launched a radio network, WEWN,^[73] which is carried by 215 stations, as well as on shortwave.^[74]

On November 12, 1997, Angelica, on her Mother Angelica Live show, called on the faithful under Cardinal Roger Mahony to disobey the cardinal's Guide for Sunday Mass, saying "I'm afraid my obedience in that diocese would be absolutely zero, and I hope everybody else's in that diocese is zero."^[75] On November 18, Angelica apologized.^[75]

In January 28, 1998, Paula Albertini, an Italian woman prayed the rosary with Mother Angelica in Mother Angelica’s office. ^[76] Sister Mary Clare saw a bright glow surrounding the painting of Saint Francis reaching up to the crucified Christ. Paolini urged Nother Angelica to defend the Holy Eucharist even with your own life”. ^[77] Mother felt that God wished to heal her. Alberti requested she remove her braces. Mother was cured and her unsteadiness vanished, she no longer needed crutches. ^[78] Mother told Life in the Rock host Jeff Cavins that the purpose of the healing was to increase the faith of viewers and employees. ^[79]

In the late 1990s, her EWTN show was so popular that she occasionally was the victim of live, call-in pranks by Captain Janks which were aired on The Howard Stern Show. Most of these calls were of a vulgar, sexual nature, but she handled them with her usual stern, but forgiving candor.^{[citation needed]}

Angelica stepped down from control of EWTN in 2000 and handed control to a board of lay people. In 2001 she had one of several strokes.^[59]

Angelica returned to taping her show twice a week on September 25, 2001. On Christmas Eve, she suffered another stroke and underwent a thrombectomy to remove a blood clot, a procedure that resulted in improvement of her vision. The stroke caused partial paralysis of the right side of her body and affected her speech. She began speech therapy and stopped hosting television programs.^[80] As her health declined, fellow sisters of her order in Hanceville began providing her with constant care.^[81]

On October 4, 2009, Angelica and Deacon Bill Steltemeier, then chairman of EWTN's board of governors, received the papal medal (Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice) from Pope Benedict XVI for their distinguished service to the Catholic Church.^[82][59] Because of her ill health, Angelica received the award in her room.^[83] Bishop Robert J. Baker of the Diocese of Birmingham said: "Mother Angelica's effort has been at the vanguard of the new evangelization and has had a great impact on our world."^[83]

In early December 2015, Angelica was placed on a feeding tube. A representative for her order explained, "It's not that she's completely unable to eat. It's assisting her to get the nutrients she needs." He added that she had experienced "some up and downs the last few months. She's a fighter." Although Angelica was confined to her bed, a representative said that she was "able to communicate with a squeeze of a hand, make gestures with her eyes. She acknowledges people when they're there. The nuns say she does sleep a lot."^[47][84] The use of a feeding tube was in accord with the wishes she made before her stroke in 2001 – a reporter recalled her saying: "We don't understand the awesomeness of living even one more day... I told my sisters the other day, 'When I get really bad give me all the medicine I can take, all the tubes you can stuff down me. ... I want to live. ... Because I will have suffered one more day for the love of God... I will exercise you in virtue. But most of all I will know God better. You cannot measure the value of one new thought about God in your own life.'"^[81]

In early February 2016 Pope Francis, while en route to Cuba, recorded a message for Angelica, saying: "To Mother Angelica with my blessing and I ask you to pray for me; I need it. God bless you Mother Angelica."^[47] Near the end of that month, her fellow nuns at Our Lady of Angels Monastery called for prayers on her behalf saying that "Mother's condition remains delicate and she receives devoted care day and night by her sisters and nurses. In God's Providence, she was able to receive the special Jubilee grace of passing through the Holy Door shortly after its opening. Although she is most often sleeping, from time to time Mother will give a radiant smile. ... Please continue to keep her in your prayers; each day is a gift!"^[85]

Angelica remained living at the monastery until her death on March 27, 2016 (Easter Sunday), at the age of 92, from complications due to the stroke she had 14 years prior.^[86] At the time, she "also suffered from Bell's palsy, heart disease and asthma."^[46]

Angelica held the Catholic belief in redemptive suffering,^[87] the belief human suffering can become meritorious if offered to Jesus Christ and mystically united with his suffering. Because of this belief, in her period of declining health, Angelica "instructed her nuns to do everything to keep her alive, no matter how much she suffered, because every day she suffered, she suffered for God."^[46] EWTN chaplain Joseph Mary Wolfe told reporters that Angelica's desire to unite with Jesus in suffering was fulfilled when she "went into her death throes on Good Friday".^[46]

Wolfe recalled that "Mother began to cry out early in the morning from the pain that she was having. She had a fracture in her bones because of the length of time she had been bedridden. They said you could hear it down the hallways, that she was crying out on Good Friday from what she was going through. These two people [a caregiver and one of the sisters of her order] said to me she has excruciating pain."^[46] Wolfe said that "After the 3 o'clock hour arrived on Good Friday she was more calm, she was more peaceful."^[46] By 5:30 a.m. on Easter Sunday, Wolfe was contacted by Mother Delores, who told him that Angelica "was really struggling, she wasn't doing very well."^[46] Wolfe went to her bedside to administer the Catholic last rites with the sisters of her order in attendance. The sisters prayed their morning prayers, the Divine Office, around her bed. As it was Easter, the prayer was liturgically required to contain Alleluias, which are usually not contained in the office for the dead – a fact that Wolfe felt had significance. Around 10:30 a.m., Father Paschal offered Mass in her room and she received her last communion (Viaticum). She died shortly before 5:00 p.m.^[46]

Sean O. Sheridan, the former president of the Franciscan University of Steubenville where Angelica received an honorary doctorate of sacred theology, described her as "a true media giant. She proved that the Church belonged in the popular media alongside the news, sports, and talk shows".^[72][88] Mark Evans of Deadline wrote, "Though her stances were decidedly old-school – she was critical of religious and political progressives – her lectures were lightened with an often self-deprecating humor. She famously said the nuns she remembered from her youth were 'the meanest people on God's earth.'"^[72]

On March 30, 2016, at a general audience in St. Peter's Square, Rome, an employee of EWTN held up a portrait of Angelica and Pope Francis responded to the display by saying "she's in Heaven".

In a ceremony on March 29, 2016, Angelica's body was brought to the Our Lady of the Angels Monastery for private visitation by the Poor Clare nuns. Public visitation occurred at the upper church of the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament on March 30–31. The Mass of Christian Burial at the shrine's upper church took place on April 1 with the Archbishop of Philadelphia and EWTN board member Charles J. Chaput serving as principal celebrant and the EWTN chaplain Joseph Mary Wolfe as the homilist. Robert J. Baker and David E. Foley, the current and emeritus Bishops of Birmingham (where both EWTN and Our Lady of the Angels Monastery are located), respectively, concelebrated the Mass, along with Archbishop Thomas J. Rodi of Mobile (whose ecclesiastical province includes the Diocese of Birmingham), Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix, Bishop Richard F. Stika of Knoxville, and Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, who delivered a message from Pope Francis. In addition, many priests, deacons, religious, and seminarians were in attendance. This was followed by the rite of committal at the shrine's crypt chapel. All the funeral rites were televised on EWTN.^[89][90]

After Angelica's death in 2016, there were calls from many for her to be canonized. Catholic Church rules dictate that a person's cause for sainthood cannot begin until five years after the person has died.^[91] As of September 2022, there has been no announcement from the Diocese of Birmingham whether a petition will be sent to Rome to begin a cause for her canonization.

• EWTN: Mother Angelica Official Dedication Site
• YouTube: Bishop Robert Barron on Mother Angelica
• YouTube / EWTN: Mother Angelica Live Classics
• IMDb: Mother Angelica’s biography