Mother Angelica

MOTHER ANGELICA (2005) is the notably well written biography of Rita Antoinette Rizzo, born April 20, 1923 in Canton, Ohio and now in November 2010 living quietly in shattered health in Alabama. A one-time drum majorette with only a high school education, Rita Rizzo has since 1944 been a Roman Catholic "Poor Clare" Franciscan nun. Her name in religion became Sister Mary Angelica of the Annunciation. Her mother Mae Gianfresco Rizzo had been asked by the Abbess of the Adoration Monastery in Canton to choose Rita's new "name in religion." Mae picked Angelica because Rita had always been an "angelic and obedient daughter" (Ch. 4). *** In time Rita/Angelica would move south with other Poor Clare nuns of Ohio and found Our Lady of the Angels monastery in Irondale, Alabama, becoming in the process Mother Mary Angelica. In 1981 she founded the still thriving Eternal Word Television (EWTN). 1992 saw her creating WEWN an AM-FM shortwave radio network that broadcasts Catholic programs worldwide. In 1999 Mother Angelica and her nuns moved to a new location in Hanceville, Alabama and named it The Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament. In 2001, always in terrible health, Angelica handed over control of EWTN to a board of Lay Catholics. Nowadays showing the effects of numerous strokes, Mother Angelica in her prime wrote 53 books and was greatly admired by Pope John Paul II and supported in her quarrels with at least two American bishops by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI). TIME Magazine described Angelica as "arguably the most influential Roman Catholic woman in America." *** This bare bones overview is fleshed out in 19 chapters, with photographs, by her onetime colleague in media, Raymond Arroyo. At a time when American Catholics distrust as never in history their bishops (because of covering up clerical sexual abuse of the young), a surprisingly high percentage trust and respect a little Italian-American nun with only a high school education. She said, "Give me ten Jehovah Witness type Catholics and I can change the world" (Ch. 9). And by any objective standard, she may well have changed the world. And kept that troubled world accessible to conservative Roman Catholics.-OOO-