ROME (LifeSiteNews) – On Sunday March 27, Cardinal George Pell said Mass in memorial of the foundress of the Eternal World Television Network (EWTN), Mother Angelica.
“Mother Angelica moved mountains,” Pell said. “She was a strong woman with an aggressive nature, sharpened by her environment and upbringing, which she controlled well and she used to marvelous effect.”
It is the sixth year since her death.
The Mass was celebrated at the Church of Santo Spirito in Sassia, which is near St. Peter’s Square, on Laetare Sunday, a day Catholics focus on the joy that is to come at Easter after the privations of Lent.
Pell began the homily by saying: “As we all know, today is Laetare Sunday, the Latin for “rejoice.” We’re rejoicing because it’s halfway through Lent. Now, I suppose there’s no particular reason to rejoice if you’re not doing any penance, but we all should be doing some penance during this time of preparation for the great feast of Easter.”
He used the moment as an opportunity to challenge Catholics to do more significant penances during Lent. “All the branches of Christianity perform more significant penances in Lent than we Roman Catholics,” he said. He added that the “liberal protestant” groups do not, and that the “tradition for penance” should be “refounded.”
He then invoked the memory of Mother Angelica. “And today we celebrate the sixth anniversary, more or less, of the death of Mother Angelica. A contemplative Franciscan nun, a Poor Clare…”
She had a “feisty character” Pell added and added that in 1981 she started EWTN with only $200.
The cardinal listed foundational aspects of Mother Angelica’s long life.
“Rita Rizzo was born poor into a family in the Rust Belt of Ohio,” he said.
“Her father abandoned her when she was five, and she was brought up by her mother, who unfortunately suffered from depression. She didn’t do well in school…”
Pell said her story is a “great encouragement” to those born into less-than-ideal family environments.
Mother Angelica “went from strength to strength very much in a straight line,” Pell said.
“She was a woman of deep faith and prayer and would have made a great double act with the Old Testament prophet Elijah, who saved monotheism under the notorious Jezebel and her weak and evil husband Ahab.”
In 1993 Mother Angelica made international headlines when she objected to a woman playing the role of Christ in the Stations of the Cross re-enactment at the Denver World Youth Day. She said it was done in “bad taste” and was “very imprudent” and “blasphemous.” She called it an “abomination to the Eternal Father.”
The event was carried on EWTN, and Mother Angelica roundly criticized Catholic feminists for promoting the performance.
In his homily, Pell addressed this heroic moment in Mother Angelica’s life: “It was love and devotion to Christ which provoked Mother’s most famous and controversial denunciation in 1993, after a female Christ figure was presented [in the Stations of the Cross] at the Denver World Youth Day. It was a searing and prophetic indictment.”
She was right,” he added. “An Australian Catholic activist told me that speech changed the direction of his life.”
The cardinal concluded the homily by saying: “We thank God for all the good work that EWTN has done since 1981. And we pray that God will continue to bless EWTN for many decades to come.”
Read the full homily here.