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.

Social Justice now means being pro-union, pro-illegal immigration, pro-bigger government and wealth redistribution.

What ever happened to charity as Jesus taught? He gave all of us an individual mandate to practice charity and love for our fellow man, not government sponsored social justice wealth redistribution. When Obama was campaigning and just before the housing market crash, I remember one of my coworkers saying that everyone had a “right” to a house. I thought he was crazy. We waited to buy our house until we could afford it. We didn't expect the government to give us one.

I've noticed that when the government takes over our social programs, individual acts of charity go down. How many old folks now live in nursing residences with government subsidies. Families do not feel responsible for the grandparents anymore. Why should we, the government will provide.

Greenism is believing in the silly science of global warming. I have read enough on this subject to realize that there is little real science, but a lot of politics. When scientist disagree with global warming, they are threatened with their jobs. Global warming is used as a way to control our behavior, from flushing our toilets, to what type of lights we can use and what type of house and car we can buy. Eventually, they will be forcing us to sell our homes if they do not meet the government standards for square feet per person. I do not believe Jesus meant government control when he talked about charity.

Unfortunately, even Mother Angelica subscribed to evolution and higher criticism, as do most even pre-Vatican II Catholics.

Conservative Catholics don't like to admit this because to them the Bible is "Protestant," so they dance around the issue and mention everything else but the Bible issue, but so long as the Catholic Church permits the belief that there are untruths in the Divinely-inspired Bible--ie, that G-d has lied (Chas vechalilah!!!), it will be a liberal religion and all these other problems will continue to flow from that source.

The number of "conservative Catholics" on Free Republic who jump through one hoop of illogic after another to defend the notion that cosmogony is a purely scientific matter (and that Divine revelation and theology have nothing to say about that subject) while hypocritically defending every act of post-creation "Divine interference with the natural order" via miracles is truly sickening.

re: Regardless of whether the author is a “crank”, are the details true or not? Congratulations, that is the proper response / question a person who is seeking truth would ask of someone who labels another person a crank.

Here's another question: What are the credentials of the person that called Christopher Ferrara a "crank"? We know nothing about this person who calls himself Notwithstanding (or whatever). He has not refuted one point of the article, and only engaged in character assassination.

Here are the credentials of the author:

Christopher A. Ferrara

Born New York, New York 1952

BA Fordham University, 1973

JD Fordham University School of Law, 1977.

In 1990 Mr. Ferrara founded the American Catholic Lawyers Association and, since approximately 1991, has concentrated his practice on the pro-bono (that means for free) representation of Catholics in religious and civil liberties cases, both civil and criminal, both plaintiff and defense.

Mr. Ferrara has a number of significant appellate victories to his credit including the recent decision of the Second Circuit in Spitzer v. Operation Rescue, striking down an expanded injunction against pro-life activists under FACE, and narrowing the grounds for liability under FACE for the alleged making of threats.

Mr. Ferrara has also won a number of acquittals and dismissals of pro-life activists at the trial level and obtained an appellate court reversal of a $109 million verdict against pro-life activists in Portland, Oregon, whose reinstatement by a sharply divided (6-5) en banc panel is now the subject of continued proceedings in the federal district court.

Mr. Ferrara is a widely published author on Catholic Church affairs and co-authored The Great Facade: Vatican II and the Regime of Novelty in the Roman Catholic Church (Remnant Press, 2002).

Catechism of the Catholic Church, on Sacred Scripture:

[101]”In order to reveal himself to men, in the condescension of his goodness God speaks to them in human words...[102] Through all the words of Sacred Scripture, God speaks only one single Word, his one Utterance in whom he expresses himself completely: ‘You recall that one and the same Word of God extends throughout Scripture, that it is one and the same Utterance that resounds in the mouths of all the sacred writers, since he who was in the beginning God with God has no need of separate syllables; for he not subject to time.’(Heb 1:1-3)”

109 “In Sacred Scripture, God speaks to man in a human way. To interpret Scripture correctly, the reader must be attentive to what the human authors truly wanted to affirm and to what God wanted to reveal to us by their words.

110 In order to discover the sacred authors’ intention, the reader must take into account the conditions of their time and culture, the literary genres in use at that time, and the modes of feeling, speaking, and narrating then current...

111 But since Sacred Scripture is inspired, there is another and no less important principle of correct interpretation, without which Scripture would remain a dead letter...

112 1. Be especially attentive to the content and unity of the whole Scripture. Different as the books which comprise it may be, Scripture is a unity by reason of the unity of God’s plan, of which Christ Jesus is the center and heart, open since his Passover...

113 2. Read the Scripture within the living Tradition of the whole Church. According to a saying of the Fathers, Sacred Scripture is written principally in the Church’s heart rather than in documents and records, for the Church carries in her Tradition the living memorial of God’s Word, and it is the Holy Spirit who gives her the spiritual interpretation of the Scripture...

114 3. Be attentive to the analogy of faith. By ‘analogy of faith’ we mean the coherence of the truths of faith among themselves and within the whole plan of Revelation.

115 According to an ancient tradition, one can distinguish between two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual, the latter being subdivided into the allegorical, moral, and anagogical senses. The profound concordance of the four senses guarantees all its richness to the living reading of Scripture in the Church.

116 The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis...

117 The spiritual sense. Thanks to the unity of God’s plan, not only the text of Scripture but also the realities and events about which it speaks can be signs.

117 1. The allegorical sense. We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ; thus the crossing of the Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ’s victory and also of Christian Baptism.

117 2. The moral sense. The events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly...

117 3. The anagogical sense. We can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us toward our true homeland: thus the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem.

118 A medieval couplet summarizes the significance of the four senses: The Letter speaks of deeds; Allegory to faith; the Moral how to act; Anagogy our destiny.”

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.

Thank you for proving my point, firerosemom.

The official catechism of the Catholic Church here endorses late nineteenth century liberal German Protestant higher criticism and jumps through hoops to explain that the first eleven chapters of Genesis don't actually mean what they say. Meanwhile, these same hypocrites illogically insist that the new testament is to be interpreted literally when it comes to the virgin birth, resurrection, and transubstantiation because "G-d can do anything!"

Logic tells us that if the new testament means what it says, then so does the first eleven chapters of Genesis. The real reason Catholics accept one and not the other is because Genesis is for "trailer trash," and Catholics (at least American Catholics) aren't "trailer trash."

Verdugo?

Catechism of the Catholic Church:

94 “Thanks to the assistance of the Holy Spirit, the understanding of both the realities and the words of the heritage of faith is able to grow in the life of the Church:
- through the contemplation and study of believers who ponder these things in their hearts; it is in particular ‘theological research [which] deepens knowledge of revealed truth’.
- from the intimate sense of spiritual realities which [believers] experience, the sacred Scriptures grow with the one who reads them.
- from the preaching of those who have received, along with their right of succession in the episcopate, the sure charism of truth.

95 It is clear therefore that, in the supremely wise arrangement of God, sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture, and the Magisterium of the Church are so connected and associated that one of them cannot stand without the others. Working together, each in its own way, under the action of the one Holy Spirit, they all contribute effectively to the salvation of souls.”

Thank you again for your confirmation.

Catechism of the Catholic Church:

94 “Thanks to the assistance of the Holy Spirit, the understanding of both the realities and the words of the heritage of faith is able to grow in the life of the Church:

Translation: the doctrines of the Catholic Church constantly change and evolve.

- through the contemplation and study of believers who ponder these things in their hearts; it is in particular ‘theological research [which] deepens knowledge of revealed truth’.

Translation: everyone was an idiot until late nineteenth century liberal German Protestantism discovered that the Bible was a pack of myths. I'm still trying to figure out why "conservative Catholics" are such hypocrites when it comes to applying these theories consistently. I notice most of them are happy to dismiss the first eleven chapters of Genesis and the Book of Jonah, but they become "simple-minded fundies" when they get to the "new testament."

Verdugo, how did nineteenth century liberal Protestant theories get subsumed into "sacred tradition and the magisterium of the church?"

Catechism of the Catholic Church 84 “The apostles entrusted the ‘Sacred deposit’ of the faith (the depositum fidei), contained in Sacred Scripture and Tradition, to the whole of the Church. ‘By adhering to [this heritage] the entire holy people, united to its pastors, remains always faithful to the teaching of the apostles, to the brotherhood, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. So, in maintaining, practicing, and professing the faith that has been handed on, there should be a remarkable harmony between the bishops and the faithful.’”

So . . . what does "this heritage" have to do with late nineteenth century liberal German Protestant Biblical criticism, or Darwinian evolution, or Lyellian geology?

And if Genesis 1-11 doesn't mean what it says, why should John 6 mean what it says either?

Is it your intention to continue posting excerpts from the Catechism to confirm me in my prejudices? I'm not anti-Catholic enough for you already?

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