Mother Angelica has died

[Cleopatra7]

Mother Angelica, founder of the EWTN Catholic cable channel died on Sunday (Easter, how apropos):

http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2016/03/28/we-wont-look-on-the-likes-of-mother-angelica-again/

She was a staunch culture warrior and upholder of Catholic orthodoxy, but wasn't afraid to tell the bishops off if they displeased her. If nothing else, Mother Angelica represented how detached conservative Catholicism has become from the knee jerk clericalism of the pre-Vatican II era when a nun can take down the bishops and be considered a heroine by other "orthodox" Catholics.

[47of74]

Yeah I saw that.  I hope she rests in peace.  That said she represented a kind of Catholicism that led me to swim the Thames over to the Episcopal Church.

[Koala]

I saw that on our local news.  She lived like 20 minutes from here...

[princessmahina]

I live close enough to attend her funeral, but I have a feeling it will be a madhouse down in Hanceville. Nevertheless, I'll probably venture down to pay my respects at some point. Love her. I feel like she made Catholicism a bit more accessible. 

"If it wasn't for people, we could all be holy."

-Mother Angelica

[lilwriter85]

I did a semester exchange program at University of Alabama-Birmingham for my undergrad I met a Catholics that encountered Mother Angelica through EWTN and only one of them liked her. When I was growing my Catholic parents and one of my grandmothers could only take her programming in small doses.

[47of74]

1 hour ago, princessmahina said:

I live close enough to attend her funeral, but I have a feeling it will be a madhouse down in Hanceville. Nevertheless, I'll probably venture down to pay my respects at some point. Love her. I feel like she made Catholicism a bit more accessible. 

"If it wasn't for people, we could all be holy."

-Mother Angelica

Yes I understand Archbishop Chaput is going to be the celebrant for the funeral and that they're probably be lots of clergy coming down for that.

I'm sorry if I sound a bit jaded but I wonder how many clergy and politicians are going to show up there just so they can be filmed on camera being at the funeral?  Or can be interviewed about how much Mother Angelica meant to them even if the first time they heard of her was when she died?

One thing that's bugging the hell out of me was this;

al.com/living/index.ssf/2016/03/mother_angelicas_last_days_pri.html

Quote

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

Wolfe noted that Mother Angelica had instructed her nuns to do everything to keep her alive, no matter how much she suffered, because every day she suffered, she suffered for God.

"Most of us would not think that way," Wolfe said. "We would think, 'Get me out of here...' What's taken out of that picture is the love of God."

Mother Angelica wanted each day to be "one more act of suffering to God," Wolfe said.

It just really bugs me because I've seen my grandparents and an aunt at the end, and knowing how much pain my aunt was in at the end.  My uncle is glad she's upstairs with her parents now because of the amount of pain she was in the last couple months of her life with us.

 

[RosyDaisy]

RIP Mother Angelica. I'm not Catholic, and I have never watched EWTN programming. I do know she was loved here in Alabama.

BTW, Hanceville is a madhouse. My husband and I were there earlier today for a different reason. For those traveling there to pay respects, please be weather aware. It's going to be stormy. If anybody is traveling out of state, I have some excellent recommendations for lodging and dining. PM me.

[Cleopatra7]

50 minutes ago, 47of74 said:

Yes I understand Archbishop Chaput is going to be the celebrant for the funeral and that they're probably be lots of clergy coming down for that.

I'm sorry if I sound a bit jaded but I wonder how many clergy and politicians are going to show up there just so they can be filmed on camera being at the funeral?  Or can be interviewed about how much Mother Angelica meant to them even if the first time they heard of her was when she died?

One thing that's bugging the hell out of me was this;

al.com/living/index.ssf/2016/03/mother_angelicas_last_days_pri.html

It just really bugs me because I've seen my grandparents and an aunt at the end, and knowing how much pain my aunt was in at the end.  My uncle is glad she's upstairs with her parents now because of the amount of pain she was in the last couple months of her life with us.

 

Mother Angelica was really into the idea of suffering bringing you closer to god, even before she was a nun. As I recall, when she was younger she suffered from severe pain that she claimed was miraculously cured by god, which she took to be a sign of a vocation. She also had an accident while operating machinery that permanently messed up her legs and spine. I would imagine that her pain was intensified in her last decade by the stroke that ended her public career and all the challenges that come from strokes and old age. Mother Angelica was at least consistent in her personal embrace of pain, unlike Mother Teresa, who gave the people in her home substandard care under the guise of "suffering for god," while jetting off to Europe to receive modern medicine for herself. It's one thing if you want to suffer yourself, and another if you make other people who don't even share your religious views suffer when you have the ability to alleviate it.

[47of74]

1 hour ago, Cleopatra7 said:

Mother Angelica was really into the idea of suffering bringing you closer to god, even before she was a nun. As I recall, when she was younger she suffered from severe pain that she claimed was miraculously cured by god, which she took to be a sign of a vocation. She also had an accident while operating machinery that permanently messed up her legs and spine. I would imagine that her pain was intensified in her last decade by the stroke that ended her public career and all the challenges that come from strokes and old age. Mother Angelica was at least consistent in her personal embrace of pain, unlike Mother Teresa, who gave the people in her home substandard care under the guise of "suffering for god," while jetting off to Europe to receive modern medicine for herself. It's one thing if you want to suffer yourself, and another if you make other people who don't even share your religious views suffer when you have the ability to alleviate it.

I think there are some Catholics who do want to see others suffer even when the means exist to ease or end the suffering.  Remember Terri Schiavo?  Aside from evangelical right wingers it was the right wing Catholics making the most noise when the judge allowed the feeding tube to be withdrawn and for nature to take its course.  If they had their way Terri would still be suspended between life and death and trotted out whenever the right wing needed to remind others just how "pro life" they all are.  If Mother Angelica wanted to prolong her life as long as possible even though it meant more suffering and pain that's her choice, but I'm uneasy because I worry that her most ardent supporters will see it as a reason to impose her choice on everyone else, regardless of whether or not they share her religious beliefs.

[Cleopatra7]

1 minute ago, 47of74 said:

I think there are some Catholics who do want to see others suffer even when the means exist to ease or end the suffering.  Remember Terri Schiavo?  Aside from evangelical right wingers it was the right wing Catholics making the most noise when the judge allowed the feeding tube to be withdrawn and for nature to take its course.  If they had their way Terri would still be suspended between life and death and trotted out whenever the right wing needed to remind others just how "pro life" they all are.  If Mother Angelica wanted to prolong her life as long as possible even though it meant more suffering and pain that's her choice, but I'm uneasy because I worry that her most ardent supporters will see it as a reason to impose her choice on everyone else, regardless of whether or not they share her religious beliefs.

Terri Schiavo was incapable of feeling pain at the time of her death, because her brain had liquefied:

http://www.abstractappeal.com/schiavo/autopsyreport.pdf

However, I understand what you mean, and this view has political resonance. At the same time, the traditionalist Catholic view of "offering up pain" is something that a lot of people, Catholic or otherwise, don't subscribe to. The people who will see Mother Angelica's embrace of pain at the end of her life as heroic would have thought that opinion was commendable anyway, regardless of what Mother Angelica did or didn't do. If you find "offering it up" disgusting and masochistic, then Mother Angelica's actions will simply reinforce the view that only fundies would ever embrace the notion. I don't think many opinions will be changed either way, especially given what a polarizing figure Mother Angelica was and continues to be.

[BamaBelle]

I went to college down in Hanceville and worked at the CVS while I was there in the early '00s. I had the fortune of meeting Mother Angelica and several of the sisters while they shopped in the store for supplies and picked up prescriptions. I am not Catholic, and was raised fundie-lite. I was a photography student and Mother Angelica came in one day while I was manning the photo counter/register and developing some photos I had taken of the architecture and of the shrine for a class assignment (I dared not to take a camera inside out of respect).  She loved them and asked for a copy of a few of them, which I gladly gave her. I loved her and never had a bad experience with her, but I didn't really watch her program and I am not Catholic, so all I have are beautiful memories of a wonderful customer. I will say that she and all of the sisters were fond of Neutrogena Bath Oil and would regularly buy us out of the stuff. 

OT-- I dumped a boyfriend after that excursion to Our Lady of the Angles because he dared touch the Holy Water and blessed himself backward, then followed that up by making a general ass of himself inside by playing around in the confession booths and even going up front to "pray" at the alter in a full impression of Jimmy Swaggart. 

[SilverBeach]

I enjoyed and appreciated Mother Anjelica's snark, and would tune in for that reason. I am not Catholic, but I am open minded. I wondered what had happened to her. 

Isn't there a subset of Catholics that wear things under their clothes to cause pain during daily life activities? I am so glad that the God I worship does not require me to be a masochist.

[Buzzard]

I definitely watched a couple of episodes back in the 90s and I'm definitely not catholic.  I think I was a closet fan, she was pretty funny.  I didnt know anything about what she was selling, but I found her interesting.

She reached a lot of people.  I'm wondering if there will be a sainthood push from the extreme right.  

[47of74]

10 minutes ago, SilverBeach said:

I enjoyed and appreciated Mother Anjelica's snark, and would tune in for that reason. I am not Catholic, but I am open minded. I wondered what had happened to her. 

Isn't there a subset of Catholics that wear things under their clothes to cause pain during daily life activities? I am so glad that the God I worship does not require me to be a masochist.

Yes there are still Catholics that wear hairshirts or  penance chains to cause discomfort, such as celibate members of Opus Dei.  Paul VI, Mother Teresa, and Padre Pio also used them when they were alive.

I imagine there are a few Catholics who take it a bit further than that and hit themselves with a whip.  Some probably are secretive about it since telling more mainstream Catholics, especially clergy, would probably be doing a 5150 on these people.

Even in my Catholic days most of the people I was around would never dream of doing things like this to themselves.

[PennySycamore]

Mother Angelica became a lot more traditional over the years At least in her earlier years, she'd occasionally let a swear word fly.

[Cleopatra7]

18 minutes ago, PennySycamore said:

Mother Angelica became a lot more traditional over the years At least in her earlier years, she'd occasionally let a swear word fly.

Mother Angelica is an interesting person, in that her life trajectory shows how conservative Catholics evolved over the decades. Like Benedict XVI and a lot of other conservative Catholics, she was initially intrigued by Vatican II, and her order went through a lot of changes in the immediate V2 years, even ditching the habit altogether at one point. However, she eventually went back to the more conservative way of doing things, although in the earlier episodes of her eponymous TV show, you can see her in a modified habit. Mother Angelica decided to go back to the full habit after she saw a woman perform as Jesus during a live Stations of the Cross during World Youth Day in 1993 and went ballistic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCvX94US7SY

I think she was always a curser; I can't imagine her not being.

[Criscat]

Catholic here. I always thought she was funny. I agree about the increased conservatism....though I wonder how much of it is natural conservatism as you get older, and how much of it is slight backslide from Vatican II?

[PennySycamore]

Well, I've not gotten more conservative as I've gotten older.  I'm just as liberal and progressive as ever.  I think that Mother Angelica's increased conservatism partly came about because she had embraced the Charismatic Renewal and there was some crazy conservative shit in charismatic circles.

[47of74]

Mother Angelica became a lot more traditional over the years At least in her earlier years, she'd occasionally let a swear word fly.

I know a young Episcopal priest who swears from time to time. She doesn't swear every other word but if she wasn't "in uniform" you'd probably never guess she was a priest by her language.

[47of74]

9 hours ago, PennySycamore said:

Well, I've not gotten more conservative as I've gotten older.  I'm just as liberal and progressive as ever.  I think that Mother Angelica's increased conservatism partly came about because she had embraced the Charismatic Renewal and there was some crazy conservative shit in charismatic circles.

Yeah me too, I was a card carrying Republican when I was in my teens and early 20s.  Even back then though in the late 80s / early 90s the Republicans were a bit more sane than they were now.  What really did it for me was realizing just how little they cared about human life after birth.  The whole house of cards came crashing down for me after that and I've become a lot more liberal/progressive over the years.

[princessmahina]

14 hours ago, Buzzard said:

I definitely watched a couple of episodes back in the 90s and I'm definitely not catholic.  I think I was a closet fan, she was pretty funny.  I didnt know anything about what she was selling, but I found her interesting.

She reached a lot of people.  I'm wondering if there will be a sainthood push from the extreme right.  

Why only from the extreme right? Less extreme Catholics believe in sainthood and love Mother Angelica too. There was an outpouring from all kinds of Catholics- I can see a lot of people clamoring for her canonization.

[Buzzard]

I didnt realize that she was accepted by the mainstream Catholics because she was on the more conservative side.  Didnt a lot of the American hierarchy dislike the fact that she had as much control as she did?

[Cleopatra7]

2 hours ago, Buzzard said:

I didnt realize that she was accepted by the mainstream Catholics because she was on the more conservative side.  Didnt a lot of the American hierarchy dislike the fact that she had as much control as she did?

She got on the wrong side of a lot of the bishops, especially those that were more liberal/moderate, like Archbishop Weakland of Milwaukee. The bishops tried to start their own cable network to compete with EWTN, but it failed sometime in the 90s. 

 

14 hours ago, PennySycamore said:

Well, I've not gotten more conservative as I've gotten older.  I'm just as liberal and progressive as ever.  I think that Mother Angelica's increased conservatism partly came about because she had embraced the Charismatic Renewal and there was some crazy conservative shit in charismatic circles.

Mother Angelica was charismatic in the 70s and maybe the 80s, but by the 1990s she was more traditional (but not traditionalist); the masses broadcast on EWTN are done using the rite developed after Vatican II, but done with a liberal amount of Latin and other pre-Vatican II aspects.

[ADoyle90815]

17 hours ago, 47of74 said:

Yes there are still Catholics that wear hairshirts or  penance chains to cause discomfort, such as celibate members of Opus Dei.  Paul VI, Mother Teresa, and Padre Pio also used them when they were alive.

I imagine there are a few Catholics who take it a bit further than that and hit themselves with a whip.  Some probably are secretive about it since telling more mainstream Catholics, especially clergy, would probably be doing a 5150 on these people.

Even in my Catholic days most of the people I was around would never dream of doing things like this to themselves.

I'm sure there are some Catholics who wear those things to cause discomfort, but my grandpa who was heavily influenced by the Jesuit schools he attended wasn't one of them. He was pretty strict in his beliefs, but he never took things to that extreme. Not that long after Teri Schaivo was allowed to die, my grandpa made it clear that if there was no quality of life, he wanted all life support shut off. His request was honored, despite some nuns having a fit, but he died quickly because his organs were already shutting down.

[Buzzard]

I was googling about the sainthood thing.  Apparently the Pope said that she was in heaven.  This has angered some posters because you have to spend time in purgatory?  I'm confused... Why wouldnt she go straight to heaven?