52 Facts About Mother Angelica

Mother Angelica was most widely known for the television show Mother Angelica Live.

Mother Angelica founded the international broadcast cable television network Eternal Word Television Network, which is purported to be "the world's largest religious media network".

Mother Angelica founded the radio network WEWN, a radio network utilized by members of the Catholic Church as a means to spread their beliefs.

In 1981, Angelica started broadcasting religious programs from a converted garage in Birmingham, Alabama.

Mother Angelica hosted shows on EWTN until 2001 when she had a stroke.

Mother Angelica continued to live in the cloistered monastery in Hanceville, Alabama, until she died in 2016.

Mother Angelica was born Rita Antoinette Rizzo on April 20,1923, in Canton, Ohio, a small town with a large immigrant population known for its steel production.

Mother Angelica remembered her grandfather providing Italian newcomers with clothes and helping them find work, and her grandmother feeding them.

Mother Angelica was given calcium and nerve medication to treat what was deemed a nervous condition.

Mother Angelica secretly began summer school without her mother knowing anything.

Mother Angelica remained unwell and in early 1941 was having spasms about three times a week.

Mother Angelica considered attaching the corset before rising but a voice commanded her to get up without it.

Mother Angelica learned to deal with overanxious crowds who at times mistook God's assistant from God himself.

Mother Angelica sought out Monsignor Habig, Rhoda Wise's spiritual director who affirmed the vocation.

Mother Angelica's first visit was to the Sisters of St Joseph in Buffalo, New York.

Mother Angelica received a new religious name, Angelica, which own mother Mae Francis was given the honour of choosing, in the gift of Mother Agnes.

In 1953, Sister Mother 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.

Mother Angelica was fitted for a body cast to relieve her compressed spine and given oversized crutches.

Mother Angelica spent a total of four months in hospital with no improvement.

Mother Angelica went back to the monastery with a back brace.

Mother Angelica was admitted to hospital for this in July 1956.

Mother Angelica apparently thought the surgery had gone wrong and gave up; Angelica could move her legs but not walk, so she recovered in hospital for two months.

In 1996, Mother Angelica visited South America to publicise her new Spanish-language channel.

In 1962, Mother Angelica began a series of community meetings on matters relevant to Catholicism and began recording her talks for sale.

On February 16 1981, the Sacred Congregation for Religious informed Vath that Mother Angelica was a cloistered nun and thus may not travel, other than to her studio.

Mother Angelica had been giving talks outside for years with the bishop's blessing.

Cardinal Silvio Oddi, head of the Sacred Congregation for the Clergy rescued the situation; he visited Mother Angelica and secured exemptions under Church law which enabled to leave the monastery on business.

On December 28,1992, Mother Angelica launched a radio network, WEWN, which is carried by 215 stations, as well as on shortwave.

Mother Angelica felt God wished to heal her; Albertini asked she remove the braces and Mother Angelica was cured as her unsteadiness vanished, no longer needing crutches.

Mother Angelica later told Life on the Rock host Jeff Cavins the purpose of the healing was to increase the faith of viewers and employees.

On October 18,1999, Bishop Foley of Birmingham promulgated a law in his diocese forbidding ad orientem, so Mother Angelica wrote to the Vatican.

However, Mother Angelica was unaware of this and Bishop Foley was able to continue his battle by stating that he was representing the NCCB.

Mother Angelica then rescinded his decree of October 18,1999, instead forbidding the broadcast of ad orientem Masses.

Mother Angelica resigned as CEO of EWTN on March 17,2000, ceding control to a board of laity.

Mother Angelica settled into community life and enjoyed her time away from the network.

On July 3,2000, Mother Angelica collapsed, turned blue, and became unconscious.

On September 5,2001, Mother Angelica suffered facial paralysis, with an MRI showing she had had bilateral recurrent strokes.

On Christmas Eve, Mother Angelica collapsed in the monastery chapel and was found unresponsive, a CT scan revealing a cerebral haemorrhage.

Mother Angelica was transferred to Birmingham and underwent a craniotomy to remove the blood clot from around her brain.

Mother Angelica began speech therapy and stopped hosting television programs.

Mother Angelica attributed her need for purification as the reason for her stroke.

Mother Angelica did not receive physical healing, but discovered she was still needed and could do much good, even in silence.

In December 2004, Mother Angelica visited the Japanese island of Kyushu.

Mother Angelica was in considerable pain and a doctor felt Angelica had fractured her tail bone while in Akita.

Mother Angelica was much less mobile and frail following this.

Mother Angelica remained abbess during this time, but her incapacity left the effective exercise of leadership to the elected vicar, Sister Catherine.

Mother Angelica quickly called chapter meetings to reconsider the vocations of younger nuns, especially practitioners of the controversial Divine Will devotion.

In early December 2015, Mother Angelica was placed on a feeding tube.

Mother Angelica remained alive 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.

Mother Angelica held the Catholic belief in redemptive suffering, wherein human suffering can become meritorious if offered to Jesus Christ and mystically united with his suffering.

Mother Angelica had a fracture in her bones because of the length of time she had been bedridden.

Mother Angelica famously said the nuns she remembered from her youth were 'the meanest people on God's earth.