In a statement released through the Catholic News Agency (CNA), the chairman and the chief executive officer of EWTN Michael Warsaw praised Mother Angelica's "accomplishments and legacies in evangelization" and her "unwavering faithfulness to Our Lord."
"Mother has always and will always personify EWTN, the network that God asked her to found," Warsaw said.
Mother Angelica founded EWTN in 1981 from a garage studio at the Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in Irondale, Alabama.
Currently, EWTN transmits religious programs in a 24-hour-a-day basis, broadcast in 144 countries across the globe including the Philippines through several cable news providers.
"Mother Angelica succeeded at a task the nation’s bishops themselves couldn’t achieve," Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia said in a report from CNA.
"She founded and grew a network that appealed to everyday Catholics, understood their needs and fed their spirits. She had a lot of help, obviously, but that was part of her genius," he added.
Mother Angelica was born on April 20, 1923 in Canton, Ohio. In 1944, she entered the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration in Cleveland and took the name Sister Mary Angelica of the Annunciation.
According to her biography authored by EWTN host Raymond Arroyo, Mother Angelica started recording her first radio program in 1971 thus giving birth to her Catholic media apostolate.
But at one point, Mother Angelica found out that the radio station in which her program aired was planning to air a program that she thought was blasphemous. The nun complained to the station manager but her concerns were ignored.
This made Mother Angelica decide to build a station of her own and turn their garage into a television studio.
The nun became popular around the world with her program "Mother Angelica Live," a Catholic talk show which aired in EWTN twice a week.
TIME magazine once described Mother Angelica as "arguably the most influential Roman Catholic woman in America."
In 2009, she received the papal medal "Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice" from Pope Benedict XVI for her distinguished service to the Church.
source: www.abs-cbnnews.com
