43 years ago, on August 15, 1981, coinciding with the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, Mother Angelica founded the global Catholic channel Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) in Alabama, United States.
At that time, everything that Mother Angelica and the nuns of the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration community had for the television channel fit in a garage where their community was located, in Irondale.
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It was also August 15, 1944, when Rita Rizzo joined the Poor Clares in the city of Cleveland, taking the name Sister Mary Angelica of the Annunciation. At that time, she was only 21 years old.
EWTN’s origins date back to the 1960s and 1970s. Mother Angelica became known as a charismatic speaker, and in 1969 she began recording audio of spiritual conversations for mass distribution.
Her first radio program was in 1971. Seven years later the nun recorded her first half-hour television programs under the name “Our Hermitage.”
However, one day in 1978, Mother Angelica learned that the secular station where she recorded planned to broadcast a program that she considered blasphemous.
“I confronted the station manager and protested.” “He ignored my complaint, so I told him I was going somewhere else to do my recordings. He told me: ‘You leave this station and you’re off television.'” “I will build my own (station)!” Mother Angelica replied.
As a result of Mother Angelica’s trust and drive, EWTN broadcasts programming 24 hours a day to more than 380 million homes in more than 150 countries, and has around 400 workers.
Additionally, EWTN currently manages a catalog of religious articles and publishes the National Catholic Register and ACI Prensa, among other publishing companies.
EWTN thanks all those who are part of “our spiritual family, for joining us in prayer and Masses of thanksgiving to Heavenly Father for one more year of operations, for one more year of graces and blessings received, for all the generosity that He Himself puts in the hearts of our benefactors and viewers, and for the great love and support of all our missionary friends, taking EWTN everywhere.”
Mother Angelica passed away on March 27, 2016, Easter Sunday, after 15 years of struggling with the after-effects of a stroke. She was 92 years old.
In July 2016, Pope Francis said Mother Angelica was “a holy woman.”
Every year the EWTN friars bless the facilities of the Catholic channel with the Blessed Sacrament.
Central Editorial
The Catholic Information Agency – ACI Prensa, is part of the news agencies of the ACI Group, one of the largest generators of Catholic news content in five languages and which has belonged since June 2014 to the EWTN Global Catholic Network family, the largest Catholic television network in the world, founded in 1981 by Mother Angelica in Irondale, Alabama (United States), and which reaches more than 85 million homes in 110 countries and 16 territories.