When we talk about women who blazed a trail in the competitive and demanding field of broadcast communications, Mother Angelica should be remembered at the very top of that list.
Not only did this dynamic faith-filled woman, begin a major Catholic media network in the middle of the Bible Belt, but she did it on a wing and a prayer. Despite countless obstacles including challenges with funding, opposition from many in the Church, and her own health issues, she believed she had a mission and she pressed on. As a result, her love for God and His children led to the Eternal World Television Network (EWTN) becoming the largest religious media organization in the world. It’s a network that has impacted the lives and souls of millions of people, including my own.
The late Jessica Savitch, who worked for years as an anchorwoman and reporter for NBC, was once told by a college professor “there’s no room for broads in broadcasting.” Before Savitch lost her life in a tragic car accident, she fought her way to the top in the rough and tumble TV news world, making that professor eat his words by achieving a great deal of on-air success. But not even Savitch, or her colleagues in broadcast journalism, colleagues also struggling to make names for themselves, would ever achieve what one feisty nun accomplished. At a time in the late 70’s and early 80’s when women were still trying to find their place in prominent positions on and off the air, at local affiliate and major broadcast networks, Mother Angelica was breaking through all kinds of barriers still in place in many areas. Not only did she begin a major network and run it successfully behind the scenes, but she was a major fixture on the air as well, with her popular radio and TV shows, especially Mother Angelica Live.
Mother Angelica proved there was a lot of room for broads in all area of broadcasting especially when God wants them there. Not bad for a little Italian American girl from Canton, Ohio. I for one, but I am hardly alone in this camp, will be forever grateful for her sacrifices and her determination. Well done, good and faithful servant.
To learn about Mother Angelica’s life, writings, and works, along with the funeral events and prayers for this week, see EWTN’s Memorial Site: EWTN.com/MotherAngelica
To purchase books, CD’s, DVD’s and other media about and by Mother Angelica, in English and Spanish, go to the EWTN Religious Catalogue.
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The cliché “God’s Country” isn’t normally associated with a great place to visit. But it takes on an entirely different meaning under the Tuscan sun. This truly is God’s country, because there is no other explanation for the breathtaking and awe inspiring beauty, and the way He continues to reveal himself through nature and through his saints.
Tuscany was where our WINE pilgrimage took us today; more specifically Siena and Montalcino. Siena, of course, is the home of the great doctor of the Church, St. Catherine. It’s an incredible medieval town made famous by her writings, her ministry, and her efforts to unify Italy and bring the Pope back to Rome from Avignon, France. Our pilgrims thoroughly enjoyed strolling the quaint streets and spending precious time venerating St. Catherine’s relics at the Basilica of St. Dominick, as well as walking through the church where she received the stigmata. “Caterina’s” powerful spirit is everywhere and we certainly felt her presence.
To see all our pictures visit my 
Today we said “arreverdci“ to St. Claire and St. Francis and their town of Assisi, and headed to Cascia to learn more about St. Rita. St. Rita was an Augustinian nun who experienced the stigmata. Numerous miracles are attributed to her and she is the patron saint of impossible situations as well as a patron for troubled marriages and estranged families.
As we traveled through the Umbrian mountains, my pilgrimage co-hosts Kelly Wahlquist, Joan Lewis, and I couldn’t help but notice once again, as we have for the majority of this trip, the sound of lovely chatter taking place on the bus. It was a joyful noise and a sign of the Holy Spirit at work.
While not surprising, the 
How ironic. That’s what I thought as I watched the coverage of the U.S Supreme Court decision regarding Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt. How ironic, sad and maddening that hundreds of pro-abortion activists, mainly women, who gathered at the steps of the high court on June 27, were celebrating the news and using a particular song to express their utter glee; a song that claims women can’t be “owned” or treated like a toy or an object, when in reality, that’s exactly what the Supreme Court’s ruling cemented.
When I was growing up in the ’70s, the so-called women’s liberation movement built its message around the idea of choice. If women chose to stay home and have children, that was fine, and if they chose to be in the workforce, that was fine as well. Seeking some balance in both was also greatly promoted — or, should I say, sold — to women. But the truth of the matter was that women who chose anything but shooting for the corner office were made to feel as if they were setting a bad example for women everywhere — and taking the feminist movement backward instead of forward.
If you’re like me, your first impulses when reacting to the latest and even more ridiculous protest of radical feminists scheduled for this Wednesday, the so called “A Day Without A Woman,” may be to do one or all of the following:
Before I came back to the Church, I considered myself to be very reasonable about the abortion issue. I took the proverbial politically correct approach: an approach that is the only one absolutely accepted, promoted and certainly championed currently by our overly secularized world.
We’re all called to evangelize by virtue of our baptism, but what’s the most effective way to do that? During the Advent-Christmas season, or any time for that matter, how can we evangelize without having a co-worker, or even family member, turn us into the local chapter of the ACLU? More importantly, how can we not appear so overzealous that folks don’t take our message seriously and lose interest?
Hollywood and the media are being very vocal, at least since the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke, in their support of campaigns such as “Time’s Up” and #MeToo, which attempt to draw attention to the sexual harassment problems that have been going on in their industries for decades. The latest example was at the recent Golden Globe Awards.
At first, I thought it was a crude joke. Although I have a long laundry list of issues with the so-called women’s marches and those behind them, their latest move to supposedly show their support for better treatment of women was so out of touch, even for them, in terms of what they were supporting and the blatant and extremely harmful impact on women and girls, that again I thought it had to be some sort of a hoax.
First, we had the Women’s March 
There is an old saying, “what you don’t know can’t hurt you.” And yet, when it comes to the choices we make and how we live our lives every day, eventually we realize just the exact opposite is true. Even Scripture tells us that knowledge is a positive rather than a negative. The Old Testament prophet Hosea reminds us, for example, that God’s people “perish” for lack of knowledge.
Several years ago, when addressing the topic of culture and media influence on people of faith, Pope Benedict XVI gave us a great deal of food for thought: “Believers are conditioned by a culture of images that imposes contradictory models and impulses with the effective negation of God.”
The Pure Flix Entertainment film “
“The people that need to be in the seats just won’t show up.” This was one of the most common concerns expressed for the movie “Unplanned,” based on the life of former Planned Parenthood clinic director turned pro-life leader Abby Johnson. And given the anti-life climate in our culture, who could blame anyone for making these comments? And then there were all of the roadblocks that were placed in the movie’s path, including an R rating from the Motion Picture Association of America, the rejection of ads by major networks, and what amounted to a near-complete blackout by a vast majority of the secular news media.
