Canonization cause for American Rhoda Wise presented to the Vatican

Canonization cause for Mother Angelica’s spiritual mentor, Rhoda Wise, reaches next step

A positio for Servant of God Rhoda Wise was submitted to the Vatican. She has been associated with hundreds of unexplained, miraculous healings in the United States.

By Tyler Arnold

July 8, 2026

The canonization cause for Servant of God Rhoda Wise crossed another hurdle after formal documents that outline her life, heroic virtues, and holiness were submitted to the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints.

Wise — who was born in 1888 in Cadiz, Ohio, and died in 1948 in Canton, Ohio — was a laywoman and a mystic who received visions of Jesus Christ and St. Thérèse of Lisieux. In 1939, she reported a miraculous healing of her stomach cancer and a wound that doctors told her was incurable.

She was raised Protestant but was introduced to Catholicism by religious sisters during her hospital stay, where she developed a strong devotion to the rosary and St. Thérèse.

After news of the miracle spread, hundreds of people visited her home weekly, with whom she would pray. Hundreds of those who visited her home both during and after her lifetime reported miraculous, unexplained healings, including EWTN Founder Mother Angelica, who developed a close friendship with Wise after being healed of a stomach ailment.

Wise also had a visible stigma — which resembles the wounds Christ had at the Crucifixion — that appeared on her body from noon until 3 p.m. for two and a half years, from 1942 to 1945.

On July 7, Father John Sheridan — liaison between the Diocese of Youngstown, Ohio, and the Rhoda Wise House in Canton, Ohio — announced that the Vatican had received the formal “positio,” which is a collection of documents that details the holiness of her life and makes the case for why Pope Leo XIV should consider her beatification.

Valentina Culurgioni, the postulator tasked with preparing the document, gave the paperwork to the dicastery several months ago, but it was first announced by Sheridan during the Diocese of Youngstown’s annual Mass for the cause of beatification of Wise.

Following the Mass, Sheridan delivered the news to the faithful gathered by reading a letter he received from Culurgioni.

“Testimonies of healings and graces received through the intercession of Rhoda Wise continue to arrive at the shrine, which testify [to] her growing reputation of holiness and signs, and I would like to entrust to all of you two prayer intentions for this year, related to the progress of the cause in the Vatican,” Culurgioni wrote in the letter.

“First, that all the experts — historians and theologians — who will be called upon to study and evaluate the ‘positio’ may be enlightened by the Holy Spirit in their valuable and delicate work,” she added. “Second, that among all the reports of graces and healings we receive, suitable cases may be identified for investigation as alleged miracles.”

“Do not stop praying to God, asking for the spiritual or material graces you need through the intercession of Rhoda, and continue to share and bear witness to the wonders of his powerful love in your lives,” Culurgioni wrote.

Next steps

Ryan Schweitzer, assistant director of the Rhoda Wise House and Grotto, told EWTN News that the next step is the dicastery’s review of the “positio,” which includes evaluations by theologians, historians, and Catholic hierarchy. The dicastery will provide its conclusions to the Holy Father, who will determine whether to beatify her and grant her the title “venerable.”

He said there’s no real estimate for the timeline of this process but asked Catholics to “continue to pray for Rhoda’s intercession and continue to pray for her beatification.”

Schweitzer called the news of this development “exciting.” He said if Leo elevates her status to “venerable,” “that’s a very small group of individuals on their pathway to canonization.” He said that would increase her visibility and “Our Lord can utilize that visibility and knowledge of Rhoda to pray for her intercession.”

Rhoda Wise’s legacy

The Rhoda Wise House and Grotto continues to host visitors and frequently receives reports of miraculous healings on a regular basis, now nearly 80 years after her death

 According to Schweitzer, hundreds of people still visit Wise’s home weekly, many of whom come “because they’re seeking healing,” whether that be physical, mental, or spiritual. He said many of the visitors come because “they heard that something happened to a friend, some healing” and some visitors return to share stories of their healing.

Wise had a strong friendship with Mother Angelica — then Rita Rizzo — when she was just 19 years old, before entering religious life. Schweitzer noted that Rizzo “suffered from a really debilitating stomach ailment,” and her mother took her to see Wise.

Rizzo began praying a nine-day novena to St. Thérèse of Lisieux with Wise and continued to pray it each day until its conclusion, at which point she was healed of her ailment. Schweitzer said this experience served as “a catalyst to become serious about her spiritual life” and Rizzo became close friends with Wise, who served as a mentor to her.

Schweitzer said one of the most important things to know about Wise is that she was “a very humble housewife,” a person who is “not someone who is unreachable” for the average person.

“She really reflects troubles that many people today are associated with,” Schweitzer said.

Mother Angelica Born 100 years ago

 

‘She Loved Jesus So Much’: Remembering Mother Angelica on Her 100th Birthday

Friends and colleagues share memories of EWTN’s foundress.

Joseph Pronechen FeaturesApril 19, 2023

IRONDALE, Ala. — April 20 marks the centenary of Mother Mary Angelica’s birth. On that day 100 years ago, Rita Rizzo, who would eventually become a nun who would touch the lives of tens of millions of people around the world by founding the world’s largest Catholic media network, was born.

Mother Angelica, who launched EWTN in a garage the nuns transformed into a broadcasting studio on Aug. 15, 1981, impacted the lives of those closest to her, beginning with her Eternal Word Television Network family. As the centennial anniversary approached, people who knew and worked with Mother Angelica shared treasured remembrances.

EWTN has planned remembrances April 19-20. EWTN Live, at 8pm April 19, will feature host Father Mitch Pacwa and guests from the EWTN family reminiscing about Mother.

April 20 is to be a daylong commemoration, with live Masses from Rome and Irondale, Alabama, and Rosaries, along with inspirational features celebrating her life, in addition to a special Women of Grace. Bishop Steven Raica of Birmingham, Alabama, is to celebrate Mass in Rome’s Church of the Holy Spirit in Sassia.

EWTN Global Catholic Network’s Chairman of the Board and CEO Michael Warsaw said that celebrating this anniversary is “a great time to look back with gratitude for Mother Angelica’s life and realize how blessed we all were to live in a time in history where God gave her to us. Personally, she was one of the greatest blessings in my life and the life of my family. I think there is also no doubt that Mother Angelica was one of the greatest blessings that the Church has been given in this era.”

A Faith-Filled Life

The remarkable Canton, Ohio, native who became a Poor Clare nun went on to found two thriving religious orders and the world’s largest religious media network. Her life was one marked by many trials, but also by a profound “Yes” to whatever she felt God was asking of her.

After experiencing various ailments, including an inability to walk, Sister Mary Angelica promised God that if she was able to walk again, she would found a monastery in the South. But with God’s help, she accomplished much more.

“Armed with only $200, and 12 cloistered nuns with no television background, Mother turned the monastery’s garage into a television studio,” her EWTN biography recalls. “In 1981, EWTN went on the air as the country’s first Catholic satellite television station. Mother became a television star hosting a popular and still running show, Mother Angelica Live. … Today, EWTN is the largest Catholic media organization in the world … [a]ll because of one nun who refused to take ‘No’ for an answer, and instead relied on God to provide.”

Warsaw remembered Mother telling him one time about how she had asked the Lord in prayer why he had chosen her to create EWTN. 

“The answer she heard was that she wasn’t the first person he had asked, but she was the first person who said ‘Yes.’ I think that should be a lesson we can all take from Mother,” Warsaw explained. 

“When God asked her to do anything in her life, she always said, ‘Yes.’ She always had complete and total trust in his providence. She knew that if she did her part, God would do his part. Imagine how much better the Church and the world would be if we all trusted in Providence more and if, like Mother Angelica, we all said, ‘Yes’ more.”

Father Joseph Mary Wolfe, of the Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word and EWTN chaplain, recalled to the Register, “Mother had a wonderful sense of humor that kept things light, even when there were significant troubles going on. For her, God was in control, and so we shouldn’t take these things — or ourselves, for that matter — too seriously. I remember a study that was done on successful managers. The study showed that the most successful managers were those who had a passion about what they were doing — and that they had fun doing it — and so others wanted to go along for the ride. That was Mother Angelica.”

Behind the Scenes

Jesuit Father Pacwa, current host of EWTN Live and Scripture and Tradition, began working with Mother Angelica in 1984 and through those years witnessed her greatest love. “For every hour she spent on the air, she would spend four hours before the Blessed Sacrament,” Father Pacwa well remembers. “That was extremely important for her. She needed to stay focused on Jesus Our Lord. She loved Jesus so much.”

“That was one of the most important lessons I learned from her,” Father Pacwa said. “Her focus was not in wanting people to like her, but people to like Jesus. It was that key to her.”

Viewers instinctively knew and were drawn to that quality of Mother always being herself.

In 1992, Mother Angelica hired Michele Brewster, who is part of EWTN’s programming department. Today, Brewster said she is “blessed” to have worked with Mother in many different capacities in those early years. 

She told the Register, “Some of my fondest memories are floor directing for her Tuesday and Wednesday night Live shows. The crew would always come together in the studio kitchen before the live show for a brief meeting and prayer. She took a personal interest in us, like a good Italian grandmother. She would share her spiritual wisdom with us, check to see how we were doing, joke with us, correct us, challenge us, celebrate milestones with us, and pray with us.”

Today, as in the past, Brewster remains “so grateful that Mother challenged us to work on our relationship with God daily and that he can use each of us right where we are, imperfect as we are, if we let him.”

That total trust in God also stands out to Father Pacwa. 

“I’ll never forget one time I came to do a show, and 10 minutes before the show started, she said, ‘What do you want to talk about?’” 

He answered her, “I don’t know. What do you want to talk about?” 

“Well, we’ll go out there and talk about Jesus,” she replied. 

“And neither one of us had an ounce of nervousness,” Father Pacwa recalled. “That was when I realized that this is just who she is: She was going to focus on Jesus.”

That Christ-centered focus always saw EWTN through, he added. “We never signed up for Neilson ratings. We didn’t advertise. We were just going to put the Gospel out there, and the Lord will use it as he will. That was something very important to her. That became an important part of what she taught me. I look to that as one of the key teaching moments.”

More Lessons Learned

Mother’s words and actions continue to resonate today. 

Father Joseph Mary said two of Mother’s pieces of advice have helped him achieve greater peace. “One is ‘Living in the Present Moment’ — yesterday is gone, tomorrow is unborn; all we have is this present moment to love God and to love our neighbor,” he said. “And we are all called to be saints,” he emphasized. “That is a simple way to grow in holiness.”

Father Joseph Mary has never forgotten another important lesson Mother modeled. “She once said: ‘The Lord taught me one lesson my whole life long: to trust him more.’”

“We can see that in Mother’s life as the network grew,” Father Joseph Mary said, “and then, the new works of radio and the shrine came along; and then, when her health declined, she had to trust him more. We all do. But we must always remember that he is trustworthy (that is, he is worthy of our trust), and he is always faithful. We need a deep confidence in his providence.”

EWTN President and COO Doug Keck shared another incident highlighting Mother’s deep faith. 

“When my son Matt, who is a high-functioning autistic, made his confirmation, I mentioned it in a meeting to Mother Angelica. She stood up and said, ‘I need to give him something to remember this great occasion.’ So she dug out her rosary purse and pulled out her rosary beads as a gift for Matt,” he said. “The interesting part was that, along with her rosary, she also kept a little, tiny plastic baby Jesus in her purse. She remarked that she couldn’t give him away because he was too important to her and needed to stay in her pocket. It was then that I really understood how important not only the Lord was in Mother’s spiritual life, but especially his incarnation as a child, and hence why the issue of abortion is what was so hurtful to her.”

At the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament of Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in Hanceville, Alabama, which Mother Angelica opened in 1999, Poor Clare Sister Michael shared a memory from the early years with Mother. 

“Problems and challenges did not discourage Mother. They were opportunities to look for a solution. No pity parties allowed. If one door closes, go through another; follow the lead of Our Lord, and be on with it. What seemed to be setbacks often turned out to be an opening to something bigger and better.” 

And she was ever ready to convince her friends of that conviction.

Keck recalled that in the years Mother was living at the monastery in Hanceville and no longer directly involved with the network, he and his wife went for a visit. 

“Walking down the hallway, we were surprised and delighted to see Mother with one of the other sisters outside the cloister working on a particular issue,” said Keck. “When she saw us, she greeted us incredibly warmly, giving us both a hug.

“She asked us how we were doing, and my wife indicated that she had been suffering with some chronic pain over the last few months that had not gone away and which the doctors could not pinpoint,” he continued. “Mother then said, ‘Well, would you want me to pray over you for healing?’ And before we could enthusiastically say, ‘Yes,’ Mother, in her inimitable fashion, said, ‘I don’t know if it’ll do any good, but it certainly couldn’t hurt!’ We all laughed, and after she prayed over my wife, she did in fact get much better. I always think of this story because it illustrates the true humility of this great woman that my family and I were privileged and graced to work with.”

Profound Trust in God

Warsaw said he is often asked by people “what Mother’s iconic phrase is. I always say that I believe it is, ‘Dare to do the ridiculous, so that God can accomplish the miraculous!’ That sums up so much of how she lived her life.”

One example after another proved this. “People always doubted her at every stage of her life,” he said. “She was always on the margins of society. She was poor and from a broken family, with a mother who had serious emotional issues. She had very few advantages in life. She had enormous sufferings. Yet God always was there for her. He was always in her life, guiding and healing her and bringing her forward to do the work he had destined for her. In founding EWTN, the world looked at Mother and thought this whole idea was ridiculous. From both inside and outside the Church, the idea that a cloistered nun with barely a high-school education and so many physical challenges could create a television network was seen as ridiculous. 

“But it wasn’t ridiculous to Mother Angelica. She knew that God had called her to do this work and that just as he had done throughout her life, he would give her what she needed to make it happen. And that’s precisely what happened. And when we look back now over the more than four decades since she started EWTN, we can see countless miracles that God has accomplished through EWTN because she dared to do what the world thought was ridiculous.”

Mystic who once ministered to Mother Angelica on path to Sainthood

Ohio Mystic Rhoda Wise Is on the Path to Sainthood

Posted by Patti Armstrong on Saturday Mar 11th, 2017 at 9:45 AM

A teenage Rita Rizzo had a miraculous connection with Canton holy woman.

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — On Oct. 7, 2016, the Diocese of Youngstown, Ohio, formally opened the cause of beatification and canonization for Rhoda Wise. The quiet, unassuming housewife had lived in the working-class neighborhood of Canton until her death from high blood pressure at age 60 on July 7, 1948. She suffered many illnesses, including a 39-pound tumor, abscesses, wounds that wouldn’t heal and a permanent injury to her ankle.
Then, on May 28, 1939, purported miracles began: healings, visits from Jesus and St. Thérèse, and the stigmata. Following her own two unexplained healings, Wise took on new sufferings, offering them up for priests and conversions.
People began flocking to see Wise, and many purported miracles were attributed to her intercession. When she died, more than 14,000 people attended her funeral. According to Karen Sigler, general manager of the Rhoda Wise Shrine, located in Wise’s home, visitors have not stopped coming.
Occasional media attention increases traffic, such as the Fox 8 local news story in 2014 and, earlier, due to the release of the biography of EWTN foundress Mother Mary Angelica authored by EWTN News lead anchor and managing editor Raymond Arroyo, who reported that Rita Rizzo had been healed of a chronic stomach condition after visiting Wise when she was 19 years old. Canton was Mother Angelica’s hometown, too.

Rhoda’s Life
Her Name Means Rose: The Rhoda Wise Story recounts a difficult life. Born in 1888, the sixth of eight children from a working-class Protestant family, Rhoda became a widow at age 28, after only six months of marriage, when her husband died of a cerebral hemorrhage.
She married George Wise Jan. 27, 1917, and they adopted a baby girl who died before her first birthday during a flu epidemic. In 1922, George and Rhoda adopted their only other child, Anna Mae.
Rhoda loved George, but his alcoholism was a burden on their marriage. Then she developed a huge ovarian cyst, and in 1931, surgery led to severe infections that necessitated other surgeries. She could not sleep or even move much, but she prayed with the Mercy sisters at Mercy Medical Center, who taught her to pray the Rosary.
Wise grew especially close to Sister Clement, who introduced her to St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the “Little Flower.” They prayed a novena to St. Thérèse together every night. Through the sister’s influence, Wise was received into the Catholic Church Jan. 1, 1939.
Five years after the cyst was removed, Rhoda twisted her right ankle, which led to severe problems, confining her to a cast. The condition of her abdomen also continued to worsen. There was so much scarring; her abdomen could not be closed properly; and, then, doctors discovered cancer.

‘Hopeless’ Case and Meeting Jesus
On Feb. 12, 1939, Wise’s doctor explained there was no hope for a cure and sent her home. She wrote in her diary: “They say suffering and trouble only bring us nearer to God, and I know I am close to him, but I want to be closer still.”
It was in her bedroom, May 28, 1939, that Jesus reportedly appeared to her. She described the visit in her diary: “Our Blessed Lord appeared to me as I lay awake in bed at my home. The room, which had been dark, suddenly became bright, and when I turned around in bed to see the cause of it, I beheld Jesus sitting on a chair beside my bed.
“I distinctly saw the marks of his forehead where the thorns had pieced his brow. He was gloriously beautiful and was robed in a gold garment, which reflected every color.”
Wise asked Jesus if he had come for her. “No, your time has not come yet,” he said, according to her diary entry, and then explained he would return in 31 days.
On June 28, 1939, Wise recorded in her diary that Jesus came, this time with St. Thérèse. The saint put her hand on Rhoda’s stomach, and she was completely healed. Jesus told her he would return again.
Wise wrote in her diary later that year that on Aug. 15, the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Thérèse came and told her to stand up and walk. Even though her foot was supposed to be in a brace until Nov. 10, Rhoda stood up, and the cast broke. She could immediately walk. In her diary, Rhoda was joyful about the faith her miracles brought to others: “Everyone around me says they will never doubt God again.”
The greatest miracle of all, according to Rhoda, occurred when her husband George quit drinking “cold turkey” after himself seeing Jesus. He had gone to bed, and everywhere he looked, Jesus was there. Jesus said nothing. According to George: “He didn’t have to.”
Beginning on Good Friday, April 3, 1942, and every First Friday afterward, marks like a crown of thorns appeared on Rhoda’s head from noon to 3pm, and blood came forth from her eyes. Jesus told her in a vision June 2, 1942: “To save souls, one must suffer.” She later received the stigmata — the wounds of Christ — on her hands and feet.

‘This Place Is to Be a Shrine’
On April 3, 1940, Jesus told Wise: “This place is to be a shrine, and cures more wonderful than your own will take place on this spot.” After Rhoda died in 1948, her daughter Anna Mae continued to welcome visitors to the home, and reports of cures also continued. Anna Mae died in 1995. She bequeathed the home to Mother Angelica, and it became the property of Our Lady of the Angels Monastery, which Mother Angelica founded. When Wise’s shrine was incorporated as a nonprofit in 2014, ownership was returned to the shrine.

According to Colin Donovan, EWTN radio host of Open Line and vice president of theology for EWTN, Mother Angelica loved Rhoda, who was a big part of her life.
“Mother was given many of Rhoda’s possessions, but for the sake of the canonization, anything that contributes to the investigation should be under control of the postulancy,” he said. “It’s best to have everything in Canton.”
In 2010, Donovan said that the “EWTN Family Celebration” took place in Canton as a pilgrimage that united Rhoda and Mother Angelica, offering tours of places of significance to both women. Since that time, the “Mother Angelica Tour,” which includes the Rhoda Wise Shrine, is offered locally throughout the summer.

Holy Ground
Shrine manager Sigler said that the first time she walked into Wise’s house, Dec. 28, 1982, she felt peace. “I felt like I was standing on holy ground,” she said. “Our Lord’s presence is so powerful here.”
Anna Mae needed help running the shrine at the time, so Sigler stepped in, and she has been there ever since. Stiger said reports of healings from visitors and even from people who pray the novena from the website are common. Several have been submitted for investigation.
According to Sigler, Andrea Ambrosi has been named as the postulator for Rhoda’s cause in Rome. A local tribunal will have an inquiry into her life. The Vatican will review the information from the postulator and tribunal. Should her case continue, Wise will be given the title “Venerable,” indicating heroic virtue; and the next steps will be beatification and canonization.
Theresa Ungashick began going to the shrine in the early 1990s to pray, but, eventually, she started volunteering in various capacities. “I’ve had many prayers answered, but the greatest benefit has been Rhoda’s example to me: of accepting God’s mission for her,” she said.
Two lines from a prayer Wise wrote have become especially meaningful to Ungashick: “But now I pray for love, deep love of God and man; a living love that will not fail, however dark his plan.” 
“Rhoda helped me realize that it’s okay if you don’t understand everything,” she said. “Like Rhoda did, you can trust God and give him a blank page to write your life on.”

Patti Armstrong writes from North Dakota.

INFORMATION
RhodaWise.com

There is no an official imprimatur prayer yet, but as of now, this is being used: 
Heavenly Father, the love of your Crucified Son, Our Lord, Jesus Christ, sustained Rhoda Wise in her many sufferings and made her by grace a strong woman of faith. She led others to the Sacred Heart of your Son, Jesus. She devoutly promoted daily recitation of the Most Holy Rosary and the Little Way of St. Thérèse. Prayers were answered. Faith was strengthened. May these blessings continue as I ask for her intercession in this need, through

Fr. Mitch Pacwa discusses his heart attack

EWTN priest, TV host, talks about heart attack, remembers Mother Angelica on her birthday

The Rev. Mitch Pacwa distributes communion outdoors during the Funeral Mass for Mother Angelica on April 1, 2016. (Photo by Greg Garrison/AL.com)

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By Greg Garrison | ggarrison@al.com AL.com
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on April 20, 2016 

                       

Mother Angelica, with Father Mitch Pacwa in the background, on an episode of '60 Minutes' in 1985 that talked about her expanding EWTN TV empire.Screenshot from '60 Minutes' 1985

 

EWTN priest and TV host Mitch Pacwa, back home after suffering a heart attack on Saturday, said he's feeling much better.
He even felt well enough to share a few funny Mother Angelica stories on what would have been her 93^rd birthday.
"I'm recuperating," said Pacwa, who took over hosting Mother Angelica's live TV show when she retired in 2001. "It's going along slowly. I'm taking a lot of rest. I don't push myself at all."
Pacwa was shopping at the Walmart in Irondale when he had his heart attack. "I began to feel tired," he said. "I couldn't hold the little shopping basket. As soon as I paid, I felt pain in my arm and chest."
He tried to drive himself to a doctor's office, which was closed, then stopped at CVS, where they called 911. He was transported to St. Vincent's Hospital, where he underwent an angioplasty on Saturday night and had two stents put in on Monday. He was released on Tuesday morning.
"A heart attack hurts," Pacwa said. "You feel this weight. You want to ease the pressure."

EWTN priest, TV host, suffers heart attack

The Rev. Mitch Pacwa, the Catholic priest who took over Mother Angelica's live TV show on EWTN Global Catholic Network when she retired in 2001 due to health problems, suffered a heart attack over the weekend and is in recovery, EWTN said.

Pacwa said he was planning on stopping at Hamburger Heaven for a hamburger, but he almost went to the other heaven. "Heaven doesn't want me, and Hell was afraid I'd take over," Pacwa said. "The other explanation is that Mother Angelica told heaven, 'I've only been here three weeks. Don't start trouble.'"
Mother Angelica, born Rita Rizzo on April 20, 1923, died on Easter Sunday, March 27, and her funeral was April 1. Pacwa helped distribute communion to an outdoor crowd of more than 1,000 during the Mass.

Mother Angelica's last days: priest details her suffering

In a chapel at the headquarters of EWTN Global Catholic Network in Irondale today, EWTN Chaplain Joseph Wolfe described the last three days of Mother Angelica's life and her death on Easter Sunday.

Pacwa's first appearance on "Mother Angelica Live!" happened on Feb. 29, 1984, he recalled.
"Today would have been her birthday," he said. "The sisters would be feeding her ice cream. She really, really liked her ice cream."
So does Pacwa. He prefers Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip from Cincinnati-based Graeter's Ice Cream, available locally at Publix.
"This stuff is so good I've put in a petition for them to serve it at the Second Coming," Pacwa said.
'Pistol-Packing Mama'
Pacwa recalled that once during a party for one of the nuns who took her vows at Our Lady of the Angels Monastery, Mother Angelica asked Pacwa to play his mandolin. He played and sang a song that he dedicated to Mother Angelica, called, "Pistol-Packing Mama."
Mother Angelica mentioned it that night on her live show. "Do you know what song he played for me? 'Pistol-Packing Mama'!" she said, and the audience burst into laughter. Of course, Mother Angelica's only weapon was her sharp tongue.
"She brought it up on the show and everybody was laughing so hard, because it fit so well," Pacwa said.
Mother Angelica never packed heat under her habit, that he knows about, but the monastery in Irondale did have security problems that would have made it advisable, he said.
"Back in the early days, there was no security," Pacwa said. "You could just walk right in. A guy walked into her office. There was no receptionist. He walked up to her desk and he stood there with his right hand in his coat pocket, and the pocket was pointing at her, like he had a gun. She was sitting at her desk. She said, 'Is there something I can do for you?' He stood there. He clicked his teeth. 'What can I do for you?' Finally he huffed and turned around and walked out. I don't think she ever packed, but somebody should have. This is back in the 80's. The Klan twice did drive-by shootings. They shot up the convent. Another time a motorcycle gang came and broke in. The nuns kept barricading themselves, until a neighbor noticed all these motorcycles parked in the parking lot in the middle of the night and said, 'That's not right,' and chased them off."
Saying 'Son of a Bishop' on live TV
Pacwa said his first show with Mother Angelica could easily have been his last, after she thought he had cursed on the air.
"I did my first show on Sadie Hawkins Day," Pacwa recalled. "I reminded Mother of that once and said, 'I was your Sadie Hawkins date.' She said, 'You must have been hard up.' I said, 'Mother, you invited me!' We would be smart-alecky to each other."
At the time of his first guest appearance live on EWTN with Mother Angelica, Pacwa was a graduate student at Vanderbilt University.
"I was talking about the origin of the canon of scripture, how we know which books go in the New Testament," Pacwa said. "The first crisis happened when a guy named Marcion denied that anything Jewish could be in the Bible. That doesn't leave you with much. He had Luke, Acts and some of Paul, where Paul was critical of Judaism. Not only did the pope ex-communicate him in 142 A.D., but so did his father. He was the son of a bishop. I said 'son of a bishop' quickly, and she did this double-take. She said, 'What did you say?'"
Mother Angelica's ire was raised by the upstart guest. "I wasn't even trying to be a smartmouth," Pacwa said. "She didn't put up with nonsense."
Pacwa explained that Marcion really was the son of a bishop, not the other thing she might have thought he said.
"She so enjoyed the program, she decided to lengthen the show by an hour," Pacwa said. "She used to do that in the first few years of EWTN. We were only on four hours a day then anyway. In the second hour, she leaned over to me in a break, and said, 'I want you to come back and do a series for me.'"
That led to Pacwa becoming a regular on EWTN Global Catholic Network, then succeeding the founder on her TV show when she could no longer host it after a second stroke on Christmas Eve 2001.
Once when they were on the show together, Pacwa noted that Pentecostal Evangelist Jimmy Swaggart had been attacking EWTN and Mother Angelica. Pacwa suggested they pray together that he repent.
"She pulls back and says, 'You have more faith than I've got!'"
Pacwa, who likes to hunt alligators, said he has a trip planned to Louisiana in September to hunt gators. A friend always invites him down to hunt gators in the swamps.
"We were out gigging frogs last June," Pacwa said. "You see dozens of pairs of orange eyes. They are watching you."
Pacwa said he could be back on the air in a couple of weeks.
"I'm not sure yet," he said of his return date. "I'm playing it by ear. I definitely see improvements already. They're telling me in the next two, three weeks, I'll be stronger."

Fr. Mitch Pacwa remembers Mother Angelica

Father Mitch Pacwa Remembers Mother Angelica’s Early Years at EWTN  

COMMENTARY: How ‘The Jesuit Cowboy’ and the ‘Media-Mogul Nun’ teamed up to teach the Catholic faith.

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by FATHER MITCH PACWA, SJ 04/01/2016 Comments (14)

Mother Angelica and Father Mitch Pacwa

– Screenshot from 60 Minutes episode in 1985

I had never even considered a ministry in the media; I volunteered to defend our Catholic faith on an evangelical radio station in Nashville, Tenn., when I was a doctorate student at Vanderbilt University. Eventually, I got my own show, A Catholic View of Scripture, on that Protestant station.
One day, in 1984, Deacon Bill Steltemeier, then the president of EWTN, who was from Nashville, where I was living, liked my shows and asked Mother Angelica to invite me on her show, Mother Angelica Live. I drove to Irondale, Ala., in my $200 1968 Pontiac LeMans, wearing blue jeans, a flak jacket, hunting boots and a cowboy hat — just in case I needed to fix something in the car or change a tire. Upon arrival in the EWTN parking lot, Mother Angelica, with Sister Raphael, walked toward me and asked, “Can I help you, sir?” “Hi, Mother, I’m Father Mitch Pacwa, your guest tonight.” She hit her forehead with her palm, so I assured her, “Don’t worry; I clean up real well.”
She warned Deacon Bill that I better be good, or else he was in trouble. That providential day, Feb. 29, Mother and I had such an engaging conversation on the origin of the canon of Scripture that she bumped off the next shows and extended the program to two hours. Spontaneously, during one of the breaks, she said she wanted me to make a television series (which I filmed that May — the first of many series) on Scripture, the New Age movement and other topics.
She enjoyed my work because our goal was the same: to teach the basic Catholic faith to many listeners who had been poorly catechized since the late 1960s.
Mother was delighted to let her guests bring their own expertise to the interviews and the series. She enabled and encouraged us to use our own talents. My skills with language, form criticism and ancient history were always oriented toward greater clarity in Scripture that helped the faithful relate to the ancient texts; her approach was very homey, based in her personal understanding of basic human experience, as found in the people of the Bible.
She was happy that both approaches were broadcast to meet the needs of different audiences. For instance, she loved portraying the apostles as simple human beings who had the same faults and foibles as the people around us today. She usually called them “a bunch of dodos.” However, as she got older, and was closer to meeting the apostles in heaven, she referred to them less and less as dodos; I think even she was getting a little nervous about insulting the saints before she met them.
Another quality she taught us guests was authenticity: She was herself, whether on stage or offstage, with no public persona at all. This came home to me one night, about 15 minutes before the show, when she asked me what I wanted to talk about. I responded, “I don’t know. What do you want to talk about?” She said, “I don’t have anything. Let’s go out there and just have fun.”
Neither of us was nervous in the least, because we let each other be ourselves and talk about Jesus together.

Mother Angelica displayed a wonderful sense of humor on her shows and throughout all aspects of her life — a characteristic of the truly sane. Insane people cannot get any perspective on themselves, so they take themselves too seriously and expect everyone else to do the same. As a result, I had a great time teasing her whenever the opportunities arose.
She knew I loved and respected her, and she would give back at least as well as she got — if not better. One time, I had my mandolin with me and announced that I wanted to play the very first song I ever learned to sing as a 2-year-old and dedicate it to her. It went:

“Lay that pistol down, babe; lay that pistol down!
 Pistol-packin’ Mama, lay that pistol down.”

I came from a rough neighborhood. She expressed mock outrage as she laughed her head off.
Another time, we were reminiscing about that first appearance on Mother Angelica Live, Feb. 29, 1984. I said, “Mother, I was your Sadie Hawkins Day date that year.”
“Well, Sweetheart, you must have been pretty hard up for a date!” she replied.
“Just remember, Mother, you were the one who asked me,” I said. “It was Sadie Hawkins Day, after all.” We enjoyed the repartee.
In 1992, the Israeli government asked me to make videos in the Holy Land at their expense. I could not convince her to get over her fear of endangering the camera crew and the equipment because of the uncertainty in that region. In my frustration, I pulled a Mother Angelica “trick.” I went right into the chapel and asked Jesus, “Lord, how can I get Mother Angelica to agree to send us to Israel?”
A few minutes later, I walked out of the chapel, ran into Mother and asked, “Mother, what if we recorded [while] praying the Rosary at each of the places in the Holy Land where the mysteries actually occurred?” In 15 seconds, she said, “That’s a good idea. Let’s do it, Sweetheart.”
You see, she had deepened in us the need to go to Jesus for everything, even when it came to changing Mother’s mind.
When I went to Irondale to edit the Holy Land Rosary in March 1993, one of the worst snowstorms to hit Birmingham dumped 18 inches of snow and shut down the city. Because I had my cowboy boots, I could lend a hand at the station as needed. After rescuing Deacon Bill and an EWTN board member who had gotten stuck in the snow, I then walked through the convent to go to their back storage area and bring up some space heaters. I took note of Mother’s cell, which was just as small and simple as were the cells of the other sisters. That was not how most media moguls lived.
During the aftermath of the storm, a number of us huddled in the guest kitchen, since the houses were freezing cold without any electricity. Mother came in and told stories, spoke about Jesus and laughed with all of us.
During the 14 years Mother was bedridden after her strokes, many of her opponents openly predicted that EWTN would fold because she was gone. She was not gone at all, but had simply moved to full-time prayer, and they had not reckoned on the power of Mother’s prayers.
The network grew faster than ever: from 60 million homes to 264 million; radio affiliates increased from 30 to more than 500. Mother had begun the English and Spanish channels, and the network then added a German channel and a part-time French channel, in addition to local groups translating our content into Polish, Ukrainian, Korean and other languages.
If her intercession was powerful while she was bedridden in a convent, I can barely imagine the good she will do in heaven. Thank you, Mother, for everything, and speak of us often when you talk to Jesus and Mary.
Let us all pray she gets there soon.

Jesuit Father Mitch Pacwa is an author and speaker

and the host of EWTN Live and Threshold of Hope

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/father-mitch-pacwa-remembers-mother-angelicas-early-years-at-ewtn/#ixzz44cz5lxEy

The funeral of Mother Angelica

Funeral marks Mother Angelica's life as a 'faithful bride' to Jesus

 

Mother Angelica. Credit: EWTN.

By Matt Hadro

Birmingham, Ala., Apr 1, 2016 / 03:13 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Mother Angelica’s life must be viewed in reference to Jesus, the homilist at her funeral Mass said on Friday.
“We cannot understand Mother Angelica without reference the One that she loved with the passion of a bride, Jesus, the Eternal Word Who became man and dwelt among us,” said Fr. Joseph Mary Wolfe, MVFA, in his homily at the funeral Mass for Mother Angelica, foundress of EWTN and Abbess Emerita at Our Lady of the Angels monastery in Hanceville, Alabama.
“Her legacy is a legacy of His work in her,” Fr. Joseph Mary added.
An estimated 2,000 mourners attended Mother Angelica’s funeral Mass at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Hanceville, 45 miles north of Birmingham.
Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia said the Mass, joined by the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, as well as Bishop Thomas Olmstead of Phoenix, Bishop Richard Stika of Knoxville, Bishop Robert Baker of Birmingham, and his predecessor, Bishop David Foley, Mother’s long-time bishop.

Archbishop Vigano read aloud a message from Pope Francis at the end of the Mass.
“His Holiness Pope Francis was saddened to learn of the death of Mother Mary Angelica of the Annunciation, and extends heartfelt condolences to the Poor Clares of the Perpetual Adoration of Our Lady of the Angels Monastery, and to the EWTN community,” he said.
Pope Francis showed his “gratitude for mother Angelica’s service to the Gospel through social communications and through a life of prayer,” he continued. “The Holy Father commends her soul to the merciful love of Almighty God.”
Fr. Joseph Mary reflected that Christ, Mother Angelica's “bridegroom”, prompted her work at EWTN. She defended Church teaching because “she would defend the One she was wed to.”
Pointing to her healing as a teenager, he quoted her as saying she had previously been a “lukewarm” Catholic, but afterward “had a whole different attitude,” saying that “all I wanted to do after that healing was to give myself to Jesus.”
She carried this love with her for the rest of her life, especially in her work at EWTN, he noted.
“What was it that prompted the transformation of a garage into a television studio? The divinity of Jesus must be upheld,” he said. “He is the Eternal Word, the Divine Son of God. He is the bridegroom of the Church, and thus hers [Mother’s].”
“As a faithful bride she would defend the One she was wed to,” he added. “It was love for Jesus that impelled her.”
“Do we love Jesus enough to defend Him?” he asked.

He noted Mother’s love for the Eucharist, lived out in her daily adoration and reception of Holy Communion. She was “able to give life,” he said, “because [Jesus] gave life to her.”
Another legacy of Mother Angelica was her message of the “call to holiness being attainable for everyone,” Fr. Joseph Mary pointed out. She “cared deeply about the ordinary person,” and “hers was a practical spirituality for the man in the pew.”
“I think everyone here wants to be a saint,” he said. “Mother helped us to believe that it is attainable.”
He quoted from Sister Mary Michael, who came to Alabama with Mother Angelica in 1962. Mother had a “wealth of spiritual knowledge” combined with “experience” and “common sense,” he said, and she had a gift for seeing the “root of the problem.”
She even had a “yelling theology” she used if there was no other way to reach a person who wasn’t listening, he quipped. But “she never crushed you,” he added: she let you know afterward she still loved you.
Mother had to live through many illnesses and difficulties, but she never got discouraged, Fr. Joseph Mary said. She saw setbacks as an “opportunity to look for a solution,” and through trust in God “what seemed to be setbacks” would turn into “something better,” he noted.
“No pity parties allowed,” he said, explaining Mother’s outlook.
“Her only fear was not to do God’s will.”