The Banishement of Mother Angelica from EWTN

Page 2 While EWTN says the strokes have rendered Mother Angelica unable to appear on television, in truth she had already been driven from her position of control over the network she founded by an episcopal power play orchestrated with the assistance of a Vatican congregation.

It all began in November 1997 with Mother's unforgettable televised denunciation of the infamous Cardinal Mahony, that celebrity prelate who is the very embodiment of post conciliar Modernism and decay in the Church. Mother rightly denounced Mahony's "pastoral letter" on the Holy Eucharist as a Modernist obfuscation of the true doctrine of the Mass. Under pressure from Mahony's friends in the Vatican apparatus, Mother made an on the air apology; but the "apology" was even more defiant than the original commentary. For nearly an hour Mother "served up a point by point critique of the pastoral letter,"3 demonstrating that Mahony had slighted and thus undermined the doctrine of transubstantiation. An infuriated Mahony filed a canonical complaint in Rome. Arroyo quotes one elderly curial Cardinal as admitting that "Mother Angelica has the guts to tell him [Mahony] what we do not."4 Mahony's canonical complaint ultimately went nowhere, but he had already begun to agitate the Vatican apparatus to take action against Mother. Arroyo quotes Mahony's director of media relations as stating "The Cardinal wants the Holy See to do something about Mother Angelica's whole attitude that she is not responsible to the National Conference of Catholic Bishops or to any of the individual bishops."5

Page 3 Then Mother Angelica tangled with another liberal prelate, Bishop David Foley, the ordinary of her diocese in Alabama. Foley had no real authority over Mother's apostolate, the Poor Clares of the Perpetual Adoration. Nevertheless, he insisted that in the new Shrine to the Blessed Sacrament Mother was building in Hanceville, Alabama, no Masses were to be said in the traditional "ad orientern"6 manner that is, facing the altar and God in an eastward direction, rather than facing the people.7 When Mother refused to knuckle under to this illegal demand, in October 1999 Foley issued a preposterous decree stating that Mass facing the altar an unbroken tradition of the Church from her earliest days was an "illicit innovation or sacrilege" and that anyone "guilty" of this "sacrilege" would be subject to "suspension or removal of faculties." All Masses in his diocese, Foley declared, would "henceforth be celebrated at a freestanding altar and... the priest would face the people."8

In a courageous act of resistance to this abuse of power, Mother Angelica boycotted the dedication of the new Shrine in December 1999, presided over by none other than Foley himself, who celebrated Mass facing the people. Arroyo reports that a clearly humiliated Foley called Mother to the podium to say a few words, but "in silent protest" she remained with her nuns in the cloistered area behind the altar, refusing to serve as Foley's prop.9 Clearly determined to get revenge, Foley went to the Vatican as the representative of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops to demand action against Mother Angelica (no doubt with Mahony's blessing). Foley, with the advice of Cardinal Medina, head of the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, promulgated norms" that banned any televised Mass facing East (i.e. the altar) in his diocese and requiring Mass facing the people. EWTN complied with these "norms," even though they were as preposterous and illegal as Foley's earlier decree, for Foley had no authority to ban the Church's immemorial practice, on television or otherwise.

But the matter did not end there. Foley also induced the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of

Page 4 Apostolic Life to send an Apostolic Visitor, Archbishop Roberto Gonzalez of San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Alabama to investigate the entire EWTN operational It quickly became apparent that the aim of the visitation (which took place in February March 2000) was to establish that Mother Angelica's order, the Poor Clares, owned EWTN's assets, including the new Shrine, and not EWTN's civil corporation board of directors, of which Mother was CEO with full veto power over the board's decisions. If it could be established that Mother's order owned the assets, then the whole EWTN enterprise could be subjected to ecclesiastical control, including the possible appointment of a 'progressive" replacement for Mother Angelica herself.

In desperation, Mother made a prudential decision that in retrospect was a huge mistake: Fearing that Archbishop Gonzalez's report to the Vatican would recommend an ecclesiastical takeover of her apostolate, Mother surrendered all control over EWTN to the lay people who run it today. At an emergency board meeting in March of 2000, she resigned as CEO of EWTN, relinquishing her veto power, and with it her control over EWTN's affairs. At the same meeting EWTN's board amended the corporate by laws to insure lay control and preclude any control in the future by a bishop, priest or religious." Thus, instead of continuing her direct resistance to liberal prelates, Mother Angelica thought she could defeat them by a strategic retreat.

One reviewer of Arroyo's biography opines that "by resigning, Mother Angelica had defeated her enemies within the Church and entrusted her network to lay people who shared her orthodox views...."As we will see, however, Mother's retreat was actually a complete rout. For it was precisely Mother's "enemies within the Church" who had gained the victory by driving her from her position of control over EWTN, leaving the network entirely in the hands of lay people, many of them ex Protestants, who did not have her traditional pre Vatican II spiritual formation and old fashioned Catholic militancy. The nun Arroyo calls "the undisputed matriarch of Catholic communications"12 had been neutralized.

Page 5 compromised in its mission of presenting the integral Catholic Faith was already in motion. With Mother Angelica's departure as the network's signature personality by the end of 2001, the original vision of the network as a counter Modernist force for a Catholic restoration was quickly lost and has never been recovered. Mother's vision has been replaced by an "ecumenical," watered down blandness, delivered largely by ex Protestant ministers, combined with lame attempts at "cool" Catholicism with a heavy emphasis on rock music. 13

The new and "slicker" EWTN appears to be in large part the work of its vice president for production, Doug Keck, who had for twenty years headed operations at a cable TV conglomerate whose programming included The Playboy Channel. It was Keck who, as Arroyo writes, was responsible for "transforming the on air look and content of the network." …

Less than six years later, EWTN's programming now exhibits the same emasculation and liberalization of the Church militant that we see everywhere today in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. The robust Roman Catholicism the fiery Italian nun (formerly Rita Rizzo) exemplified is almost entirely gone from the network. As we will see..

No longer, then, does EWTN exhibit the kind of anti Modernist fervor we witnessed when Mother blasted not only Cardinal Mahony, but all the American bishops for allowing a woman to perform the role of Christ during the Stations of the Cross at World Youth Day in Denver in 1993.

"This is it. I've had all I'm going to take," she said in disgust.15 A few days later she blasted the bishops on her live television show. Arroyo recounts that after reciting a long train of abuses arising from the governance of liberal prelates, including disrespect for the Blessed Sacrament and mandatory sex education in Catholic schools, she continued:

“It's blasphemous that you dare to portray Jesus as a woman, You know, as Catholics we've been quiet all these years.... I'm tired, tired of being pushed in the corners. I'm tired of your inclusive language that refuses to admit that the Son of God is a man. I'm tired of your tricks. I'm tired of you making a crack, and the first thing you know there's a hole, and all of us fall in. No, this was deliberate... you made a statement that was not accidental. I am so tired of you, liberal Church in America. You're sick.... You have nothing to offer. You do nothing but destroy. You don't have vocations, and you don't even care-your whole purpose is to destroy... You can't stand Catholicism at its height, so you try to spoil it, as you've spoiled so many things in these thirty years....”

I saw that broadcast, and I will never forget the sight of Mother shaking with righteous anger before the cameras as she uttered these and so many other words that reflected the suffering of Catholics throughout the entire nation. In that very broadcast Mother vowed that in reaction to the increasingly dissolute state of the Church in America, she and her fellow Poor Clare Sisters would return to the wearing of full habits, which they did immediately.

In March of 1994 one of the most staunchly Catholic newspapers in America, The Remnant (for which I am privileged to be a columnist), expressed its admiration for Mother's decision to return to the full habit, taking it as a sign that the restoration (or perhaps we should say Catholic revival) is beginning to take place in the Church today.

“It is no longer only the 'traditionalists' who have come to the sad and desperate realization that we must go back to our Catholic past in order to see the path of our Catholic future.... Mother Angelica and her wonderful sisters are to be congratulated for their courage and fortitude, but also we should pray that they go even a step further.... It is our hope that along with all her other courageous work, Mother Angelica will one day consider calling for the unconditional return of the historical Latin Mass and strike the ultimate blow against the modernist onslaught of the Catholic Church”

In another hard-hitting commentary, Mother seemed to be moving in precisely the direction hoped for by The Remnant when she drew a long and quite ironic comparison between the actions of the Protestant "reformers" in destroying the Catholic liturgy in the sixteenth century and what the post-conciliar "reformers" did to the traditional Latin Mass after Vatican II.

But that was all before the sacking of Mother Angelica, her departure from the airwaves, and EWTN's subsequent change of direction. As this book will make clear, post-Mother Angelica EWTN has not only accommodated itself to the Modernist revolution in the Church after Vatican II, abandoning all opposition to its excesses for the sake of maintaining "good standing" with the powers that be (the likes of Foley and Mahony), but has also become a positive promoter of that same revolution. And it has done so under the guise of being traditionally Roman Catholic, continuing to capitalize on Mother Angelica's name while providing none of her militantly Catholic spirit or her common-sense Catholicism.

Worse, owing to the very nature of the television medium EWTN has evolved into something much more insidious than the overtly liberal organs of the revolution, such as the National Catholic Reporter. As Bishop Foley had correctly perceived in the controversy over the eastward-facing altar in the Shrine, Mother Angelica was wielding an instrument that is more powerful than anything else in the world [humanly speaking].

The sad story to be told by this book is that Foley, Mahony and their collaborators in the "Modernist Mafia," from the Vatican on down, have insured that this same powerful instrument would henceforth broadcast and thus inculcate, via EWTN, not only the liturgical revolution which turned the altar around, but all the other basic elements of the post-Vatican 11 revolution as a whole.

It must be stipulated at the outset that even after the victory of Modernist prelates over Mother Angelica, EWTN still retains certain elements of good Catholic programming. Yet it is the very presence of these good elements that poses a spiritual hazard for EWTN "fans," who are induced by what is good in the content to expose themselves to numerous elements that undermine the Faith.

Caatechism of the Catholic Church
295 “The Mystery of Creation
God creates by wisdom and love
We believe that God created the world according to his wisdom. It is not the product of any necessity whatever, nor of blind fate or chance. We believe that it proceeds from God’s free will; he wanted to make his creatures share in his being, wisdom, and goodness: ‘For you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.’ Therefore the Psalmist exclaims: ‘O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all’; and ‘The LORD is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made’.

298 Since God could create everything out of nothing, he can also, through the Holy Spirit, give spiritual life to sinners by creating a pure heart in them and bodily life to the dead through the Resurrection. God ‘gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.’ And since God was able to make light shine in darkness by his Word, he can also give the light of faith to those who do not yet know him.

306 God is the sovereign master of his plan. But to carry it out he also makes use of his creatures’ cooperation. This use is not a sign of weakness, but rather a token of almighty God’s greatness and goodness. For God grants his creatures not only their existence, but also the dignity of acting on their own, of being causes and principles for each other, and thus of cooperating in the accomplishment of his plan.”

Let me ask you a very simple question: what's the difference between the miraculous creation and formation of the universe in six days 5770 years ago a human child being conceived without the participation of a male parent?

First, let me say that I'm no expert on any of this. But I think the difference is that the Church always taught one as an infallibly true dogma, while the other was never taught as an infallibly true dogma.

Why do Catholic apologetics always boast about how the Catholic Church should never be confused with those stupid people who believe Genesis?

They probably think it makes for more effective apologetics.

If you can think of another reason other than sociological snobbery, I'd be happy to hear it.

I think what I said above about one being a dogma and another not is the most reasonable explanation. Do you think the Catholic Church decides its beliefs based on what would spite Fundamentalists?

Like liberals, Catholics like rural people so long as they don't live in America and don't have white skins. Also like liberals, they seem to regard rural Americans (or at least rural white Americans) as a dangerous bunch of neanderthal "haters" who are about to break out any minute into a spate of nineteenth century convent burning.

I don't know where you get this idea. This is not a common attitude among Catholics. I'd guess it's a common attitude of people from northeast metropolises such as New York and Boston, where there are a higher percentage of Catholics than the rest of the country. However, this attitude would be because they're from big northeastern liberal cities, not because they are Catholic.

Did you see that attitude in the your particular parish? I'd find that surprising, since I think you said it was in Kentucky, which I would think is even less hostile to "rednecks" than where I'm from.

For example, I'm close to Pittsburgh, and I don't see that snobbery towards rural whites. Actually, one side of my family was composed of rural white Catholic farmers, and that's hardly an anomaly. (I believe Dr. Kopp posted a little bit ago that Western Pennsylvania has the most rural Catholics in America.) This backs up my opinion that this anti-"redneck" attitude is caused by where people live, not their religion, if there are many Catholics where I'm from who have no problem with "rednecks."

On what grounds do you make this claim?

Again, I'm not going to pretend I'm an expert on this, and I think it's important for you to remember that. But just from doing basic searches and from what I've always heard, one is a dogma of the Church while another isn't. I'm sure a more knowledgeable Catholic here could give you the proper documentation.

And even if it's true, what's the excuse?

Why is there a need for an excuse?

Yet whenever a quotation is found by an otherwise highly esteemed Catholic that implies young earth creationism it will always be written off as a "personal opinion" based on the "scientific knowledge of the time." Again, this is hypocritical, as the same science that tells us the first eleven chapters of Genesis cannot possibly be true also tells us that a "virgin birth" of a human being is impossible.

I don't see how it's hypocritical when one has always been an infallible dogma, while another has not, allowing for personal opinion.

So once again it all comes down to "us vs. them," and "our profound miracles vs. their ignorant superstitions."

From my understanding, it all comes down to one being an infallible dogma, while another is not. Do you think Catholics believe things based on whether they will be against the beliefs of Fundamentalists?

Thank you for admitting that Catholic apologeticists only want intellectuals in the Church and Bible-thumping white-trash can stick to their own churches, mercifully and providentially raised up by G-d to provide for inbred morons who don't have the vast brains to belong in the Catholic Church. I really appreciate it.

I don't know where you're getting this from. All I was saying was that these Catholics apologists that you described probably think its makes for more effective apologetics to denounce literalists. It mean anything more than that.

You didn't read what I said about Jack Chick, did you?

Yes, I did. I read your whole post. I just didn't find a need to respond to your section about Chick.

The priest was a Teilhardian ultra-liberal (though a nice guy) and the members were all urban types. Plus what you completely miss out on is that every Catholic periodical available after service, each of which claimed to speak on behalf of the whole Catholic Church, had exactly the nasty, patronizing attitude I describe.

I think you're extrapolating one bad parish to represent the whole Catholic Church.

though Catholics (very much including yourself) seem to disagree.

I never said anything about young earth creationism making one a mental cripple.

I grow weary of this prolonged argument with hypocrisy.

I can sympathize with growing weary with this argument, but I don't see any hypocrisy.

So you're saying that because the virgin birth is mentioned in the Nicene Creed and young earth creationism isn't that young earth creationism therefore cannot be a dogma of the Catholic Church?

I'm not saying that. I haven't said that young earth creationism cannot be dogma, just that it is not.

You're saying that every single required dogma is in the Creed and if it's not then it's optional and there is "room for disagreement?" Does that mean there is room for disagreement on papal infallibility or the immaculate conception because they're not in the Creed any more than young earth creationism?

I never mentioned the Creed. I've never said how exactly something becomes dogma. I don't even know, myself. I'm pinging Cronos to this, because he is a knowledgeable Catholic and he could explain how you can know whether something is dogma or not. All I said was that one thing is dogma, while another is not.

Even more importantly (and the crux of the matter), you're saying that G-d can write a book and it contain errors and untruths? Just what kind of "gxd" is this you worship?

We do not claim that the Bible has any errors. We're just arguing over interpretation of it.

Because the reason young earth creationism is rejected is simply because "we now know this could not have happened" (because it violates how the world actually works). And yet the virgin birth and the resurrection violate those scientific laws every bit as much.

Young earth creationism has never been rejected. Believing in young earth creationism is not contrary to the Catholic Church.

And yet the virgin birth and the resurrection violate those scientific laws every bit as much. Fr. Raymond Brown may have been a liberal but at least he was consistent. One can't say the same thing about people who dismiss young earth creationism specifically because scientists don't believe it while believing other things which those same scientists also reject.

Science can be used as a general guide, except when it is superseded by infallible dogmas. Nothing inconsistent about that rule. Do you reject all science, because it apparently contradicts young earth creationism? If not, then you are doing the same thing.

The only reason one has "always been a dogma" while the other "has not" is that within the past two centuries people suddenly stopped believing the latter because science tells us it is "impossible." Two hundred years ago--and certainly in the days of Bellarmine--the claim could have been made that YEC "has always been an infallible dogma." If one formerly infallible dogma can be changed because uniformitarian scientists don't like it, on what grounds do you persist in holding onto other "impossible" events which may be rejected in the future just as other "impossible" dogmas have been rejected in the past?

I'd love to see the proof that YEC was once an infallible dogma, not just that it was believed by most, if not all, Christians.

How many times must I answer this question?

You haven't answered very directly.

I have responded each time that Catholic apologeticists make a punching bag of Fundamentalist Protestant creationism while holding up as "heroic examples of simple childlike faith" exotic illiterate peasants who do things like nail themselves to crosses and wrap snakes around statues. Now, do you want to ask me again? It's obvious that creationism is "red-lined" in the Catholic Church because it is associated with "trailer trash."

That looks like a "yes." Don't you think it is absurd to believe that a religious organization with several hundred million members headquartered in Rome would pick and choose its beliefs based on whether or not it contradicts with those of rural Americans?

Catholic apologeticists make a punching bag of Fundamentalist Protestants because they aim exclusively for intellectuals and don't intend to ever convert any Fundamentalist Protestants. Thank you again for admitting this.

Thank you again for putting words in my mouth. I've never admitted to such. All I said was that the Catholic apologists you were referring to thought denouncing Biblical literalism was an effective tactic. It doesn't mean whatever else you think it means. It doesn't mean there can't be other Catholic apologists trying to convert Fundamentalist Protestants.

Of course not. That example is an excellent illustration of exactly what I am saying and you are denying. Of course you couldn't respond.

No, I though you were being sarcastic and not making a serious argument, because you put a sarc sign at the end. I didn't feel the need to respond to something that looked sarcastic. I'd love to refer back to that post, but it was deleted, probably because of mentioning a certain guy's name. If I remember correctly, you said Catholics should change their beliefs, just to be different from that certain guy, and then you put a sarc sign at the end. If that's what you actually posted, then it's actually a good illustration of how Catholics don't change their beliefs just to be different from certain people. In any case, I didn't feel the need to respond to something that didn't look like a serious argument.

I am so sick and tired of having my personal experience with the Catholic Church attributed to "one bad parish."

Well, it's the first time I said that, I believe.

Was my "one bad parish" responsible for the content of Our Sunday Visitor, Liguorian, Catholic Digest, or the innumerable books churned out by well-respected Catholic theologians defending evolution and the documentary hypothesis? That must have one busy parish!

Every pope since at least Pius XII has accepted evolution. Were they all members of my parish?

The current pope doesn't believe in the traditional doctrine of original sin. Was he a member of my parish?

I was referring to the anti-redneck attitude, not its belief in evolution, original sin, or other theological issues.

Then why do you think Catholic apologeticists constantly attack it? Because they have a profound respect for those of us who believe in it???

What Catholic apologist do has nothing to do with whether or not I think young earth creationists are mental midgets and your falsely attributing that attitude to me.

Science can tell us only about the world before it. It has no access to a world when the current laws of nature either did not exist in their present form or were in the process of coming into existence. And at any rate, Divine revelation always supersedes the claims of science.

We do not claim that the Bible has any errors. We're just arguing over interpretation of it.

The notion that the first eleven chapters of Genesis are some sort of mythological "poem" different from the rest of the Torah rests on liberal Biblical criticism, which in turn rests on uniformitarian assumptions.

I'd love to see the proof that YEC was once an infallible dogma, not just that it was believed by most, if not all, Christians.

Perhaps the virgin birth or resurrection will one day join the list of those things once believed by most chr*stians that will be rejected one day on the authority of science.

Don't you think it is absurd to believe that a religious organization with several hundred million members headquartered in Rome would pick and choose its beliefs based on whether or not it contradicts with those of rural Americans?

I don't think it's absurd that the American members of that organization go out of their way to disassociate themselves from the beliefs of Fundamentalist Protestants, even as they accept the primitive beliefs of folk Catholicism.

I was referring to the anti-redneck attitude, not its belief in evolution, original sin, or other theological issues.

There's precious little difference between one and the other--especially when American Catholic apologists often thump the "don't confuse us with those awful people" mantra.

Science can tell us only about the world before it. It has no access to a world when the current laws of nature either did not exist in their present form or were in the process of coming into existence. And at any rate, Divine revelation always supersedes the claims of science.

I don't think this is a point of disagreement.

Perhaps the virgin birth or resurrection will one day join the list of those things once believed by most chr*stians that will be rejected one day on the authority of science.

They won't, because they're dogmas. Anyways, the ideas of the virgin birth and resurrection have always been against science, and they have not been rejected.

I don't think that's absurd either, but it seemed as if you were arguing that the Catholic Church picks its based on whether they are contrary to those of Fundamentalists.

There's precious little difference between one and the other--especially when American Catholic apologists often thump the "don't confuse us with those awful people" mantra.

They may be related, but there is a difference.

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