My regrets for the recent hiatus—a combination of the
business of this time of the year, family and travel obligations, and feeling
somewhat under the weather has deprived me of the time I like to spend writing
this blog. So let’s jump back in. I was going to start soft, but then thought I
would bring out a piece I have been working at off and on over the past two
months.
This past Easter Sunday the indomitable doyen of
Conservative American Catholicism, Mother Angelica of the Annunciation, Poor
Clare of Perpetual Adoration, went to her eternal reward. The last fifteen years of her life she was
incapacitated by a series of strokes that removed her from her television
career and public view, but the impact she had on American Catholicism during
her heyday, from the mid 1980’s until her health crisis in 2001, is
immeasurable. Certainly no woman and
probably no American priest or prelate has had the impact of shaping
Catholicism in the United States that Mother Angelica exercised.
Born Rita Rizzo in 1923 in Canton Ohio, Mother Angelica was
the product of a broken home. Her mother
worked hard to support herself and Rita but most of her younger years were
lived in extreme poverty. As a young
girl of 16 she had a religious experience that involved a cure from a
mysterious abdominal ailment. Under the
guidance of Rhonda Wise, a Canton “mystic and stigmatic” who played a role in
Rizzo’s cure, she sought out a religious vocation and entered the Monastery of
Poor Clare nuns in Cleveland in 1944 at the age of 21. Mother Angelica always
said that she felt no draw to marriage and family life, most likely as a result
of the dysfunction in her own family or origin.
Those candidates who come from
unhappy family systems often have difficulty adjusting to the demands of
community life but right from the beginning,
the young Sister Angelica was more a leader than simply a member of the
community. As a novice she was selected
to be one of the Cleveland nuns to make a new foundation in her hometown of
Canton and she always cherished a dream of founding a monastery of her own
where she would be abbess.
While still a novice she was injured in a domestic accident
causing persistent back pain and requiring her to wear a leg brace the
remainder of her life.
From the beginning she was anxious to establish her own
monastery and in 1957, only four years after he final vows and at the age of 34
she took leadership for a proposed monastery in the diocese of Mobile
Alabama. For six years she worked hard
to gather the funds to purchase property and build her monastery, which opened
in 1962.
1962 was the year that the Second Vatican Council opened and
Mother Angelica and her nuns were quick to embrace the Council and its
reforms. They were among the first to go
into a modified habit, pray the Office in English, and relax the rules of
Enclosure (cloister) that govern cloistered nuns. A strong advocate of exercise and healthy
lifestyle, among her innovations was to install a swimming pool for the nuns in
the monastery gardens. She invited and
encouraged the various communities of Religious Sisters in the area to come and
make use of the pool on their days off.
Partially as a means of raising funds and partially as a publicity tool
for her nuns, Mother Angelica also began to write religious pamphlets
explaining Catholic doctrines and practices.
These were, for the most part, well written and while traditionally
pious in their outlook, hardly reflected the more strident ideology of later
years. She also began taping the
conferences she gave her nuns and a market was found for these tapes among a
larger lay audience. In 1972 she wrote
her first book and also began taping a weekly radio show. This, in turn, led to many requests for her
to speak at conferences and assemblies across the United States which, despite
her a being cloistered religious, she accepted.
During a visit to Chicago to give a speech, she was invited to tour a
Baptist-owned television station and it gave her the idea to start a Catholic
network of her own—EWTN (Eternal World Television Network).
I think it was the television experience that dramatically
altered her course. The station was
initially a small operation run out of the monastery garage, but it began to
grow quickly in popularity. And as it
grew, it required more and more capital to sustain itself. Mother Angelica and her nuns borrowed
considerable sums of money to finance the work and as the loans came due there
were a number of financial crises. It
was here, I think, that Mother Angelica realized that the most conservative
wing of lay Catholics would be her most generous financial base and she began
to pander to that audience as she moved from a voice of main-line American
Catholicism to the right-wing. This was
the early eighties. It was Reagan
America. The American Bishops, appointees of the Justice and Peace Pope, Paul
VI, had just written a pastoral letter condemning American participation in the
Arms Race. They were writing a pastoral
letter on economics that questioned American commitment to Free Market
capitalism. They were planning a
pastoral letter on women. At the same
time, the ground beneath the Church was shifting as Pope John Paul II began to
distance himself from the course set by Paul VI and Vatican II. The bishops, for the most part liberal, were
out on a limb and Mother decided to saw it off.
It was an opportune time—the authority of the hierarchical
or institutional Church in the United States was crumbling. The American religious system is
Congregationalism and Americans have never understood or trusted Bishops. American Catholics have had a sense of the
universal Church and of their local parish community but the diocesan level has
always seemed an expensive and unnecessary layer of authority. The papacy is what sets us apart from our
Protestant neighbors and gives us a Catholic identity but bishops have been
seen as nothing more than sort of local lieutenants of the Vatican. In the early eighties as John Paul II carved
a new—and far more conservative path for the Church, the bishops lost evem this
credibility as local representatives of a Pope whose ideas they were often not
quick to embrace. Moreover, the changes
in the Church since Vatican II, particularly the Liturgical changes, had eroded
the somewhat monolithic authority of the Church that existed before the
Council. As many priests and most
religious dropped wearing distinctive dress and living a very distinct
lifestyle, laity began to feel more free to express their opinions and
differences about matters ecclesiastical.
This perhaps provides the context for Mother Angelica’s
battle with Cardinal Mahoney over his 1997 Pastoral Letter: Gather Faithfully Together: A Guide for
Sunday Mass in which the Cardinal outlined his goals for liturgical reform
in his diocese for the upcoming millennium.
The document is eminently sound doctrinally but, at the same time, was
“full speed ahead” with the liturgical development of the Second Vatican
Council and the post-conciliar years.
Most upsetting to conservatives was its embracing of cultural diversity
and encouragement that the parish celebrations of the Liturgy reflect the wide
variety of cultures of the Catholics of Los Angeles. Americans struggle with cultural
diversity—our “melting pot” mythology wants immigrants to lose their
distinctive identities within a generation or two and become “Americans.” Cardinal Mahoney’s letter put the Church
somewhat on the side of the multicultural and immigrant population contrary to
contemporary political wisdom.
By this time, many Catholics had been pushed to their limit
of tolerance with Liturgical change and Mother Angelica led the charge against
the Cardinal and his letter. Much like
today’s Republican nominee presumptive, Mother’s anger gave voice to the anger
and frustration of the Catholic Right.
It was a tsunami of anger and vindictiveness as Mother Angelica and her
network gave voice to a segment of the Catholic population that had for a
quarter-century felt powerless as the Mass (and the Church, and the Leave it to Beaver America) they knew
was slipping through their fingers. It
was the Reagan years, the Newt Gringrich era.
Even though Mother
Angelica had a popular following among the Catholics in the pews, it is
never a good idea to take on a Cardinal Archbishop. You don’t win a pissing contest with a guy in
a red silk dress. The other American
bishops recognized in the challenge to Mahoney’s authority a challenge to their
own authority in their dioceses and while they may not have agreed with the
Cardinal, the boys stood together.
Moreover, as powerful connections as Mother Angelica had in Rome, they
were insignificant compared to the Cardinal.
As far as Rome went, it was a draw with the Cardinal holding an
Ace. But even that was remarkable—had
the Cardinal played his hand differently he could have crushed the nun from
Alabama. For some reason he chose not
to. It is always foolish to leave a
wounded animal.
Where it played to Mother Angelica to have her spat with
Mahoney is that it drew attention and donations to her work.
Christmas Eve 1993 Mother Angelica and her community of nuns
return to wearing the pre-Vatican II habit with some minor adjustments,
claiming that it was in response of obedience to the Church and as an example
for other religious to return to their traditional habits. This was a brilliant marketing move both in
terms of financial support and vocations.
It was never clear where the “Church” said that the religious should
return to their pre-conciliar robes. About
the same time the nuns began broadcasting a daily Mass from their monastery
chapel. At the insistence of the local
bishop, the Mass was celebrated according to the approved 1970 Rite, but still with
considerable amounts of Latin and pre-conciliar ceremonial. People began flocking to her Irondale Alabama
monastery and her liturgical adaptations began to be copied in many more
conservative parishes, becoming somewhat the “gold standard” for the “Reform of
the Reform” of the Roman Mass. More and
more places saw two distinct styles of liturgy as some parishes embraced the
Mahoney model and others the Mother Angelica liturgy.
One of the customs that grew up in the Irondale monastery
was the “Mother Angelica dip”—a quick genuflection by the communicant before
standing and receiving the Eucharist.
The rubrics call for a “sign of respect” for the Blessed Sacrament by the
standing recipient but say the appropriate sign is a bow—the “dip” became a
badge for those who preferred the return to a more traditional liturgy. While in the late 90’s the “dip” was becoming
an all but universal custom, it is rarely seen anymore since the Mother
Angelica disappeared from EWTN and the public eye.
In 1999 Mother Angelica opened her new monastery and Shrine
of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Hanceville, Alabama. Built at the cost of just under $50,000,000,
it was allegedly funded by five private donors including Catholic philanthropist
Tom Monaghan, founder of Domino’s Pizza.
It really was the crowning achievement of a long career.
Mother’s disappearance from the public view created a
challenge for her EWTN network. Critics
referred to it as EWTN: Elderly Woman Talking Nonsense, but the fact of the
matter is that it was the presence of the wimpled and veiled acerbic old bag
that drew viewers. Viewership fell off
drastically and the station had to cut back both personnel and programming. While the situation seems to have stabilized
these past few years, there was an open niche for someone who is more Catholic
than the Pope to be the public voice that undermines the bishops and take up
the mantle of the alternative magisterium.
Enter Michael Voris.
Voris lacked both the capital to establish a traditional
television broadcast operation and the dramatic costuming of a Poor Clare nun,
but he has worked well with what he has.
The Internet provides him with a new form of television broadcasting
that is only beginning to grow in popularity.
And his attacks on various Catholic hierarchs from Archbishop Vigneron
to Cardinal Dolan are giving a public voice to the anger and frustration of the
Catholic Right. Voris has been very
careful not to go after the Pope which has disappointed his more radical
aficionados but which is very wise politically as that would give the bishops a
tool with which to attack—and destroy—him.
It is not that I want to accuse Michael Voris of insincerity
but I think that he, like Mother Angelica, is more a businessperson, an opportunist if you will,
than an ideologue. Voris was away from
the Church for much of his adult life and his return and embrace of that
vitriolic Catholicism that helped the Nun from Irondale succeed coincided with
her disappearance and the founding and rise of his Media work with the decline
of her television station. Voris had
tried to develop an independent television production company, Concept
Communications LLC, before his retun to the faith but was unsuccessful. His relative
success with his current company, Saint Michael Media is only because of its
appeal to the krazies who miss Mother Angelica and have transferred their
allegiance to the new kid on the block.
Whether it be a Television Nun or an Internet
telejournalist, we need the leadership of the Church to distinguish between
authentic magisterial voice and independent commentators and make sure that the
Catholic in the pews knows which is which.
A big part of the problem, I believe, is that our bishops have yet to
find credibility as leaders. They are
fighting two and a quarter centuries of episcopal leadership that their
congregants have never understood or appreciated but we need bishops who are
strong, loving, and wise. That means, of
course, the current crop has almost all to go.
