It's Shoutin' Time in Heaven!

Mother Angelica, the 92 year old nun who founded the Eternal Word Television Network in her convent's garage with $200.00, died (or went home to the Lord) on Easter. Although I disagreed with a lot of her views (reproductive rights, LGBT rights, marriage equality, redemptive suffering and probably more), I liked her. She was a funny and folksy and feisty and preached about Jesus's love and God's plan for us.

Several Catholic and former Catholic friends did not like her. Some don't care for folksy and feisty, but especially don't care for her conservative religious views. And of course they had mean nun stories about being hit with yardsticks, kneeling on rice, being ordered to “present your hand” so it could be hit with a ruler, even having their heads slammed against the wall. One joked that Mother A. was probably given a golden yardstick when she got to heaven.

Growing up Presbyterian I did not have the Mean Nun Experience. My idea a nun was Ingrid Bergman in The Bells of St. Mary's. The first conversation I ever had with a nun occurred when I was in my thirties and was a Weight Watchers lecturer. We talked about food, not theology. I did find that mean nun stories were good icebreakers at parties and in bars.Years later, a friend told me that a friend of his, after meeting me at a party, said I reminded him of an former nun. I don't know what she meant (probably not a compliment), but I thought it was hilarious. 

 

Reading Mother Angelica's obituary, I found out that her father had left the family when she was five and that she and her mother, who had mental problems, moved in with her aunt and uncle, who owned a bar in a poor section of Canton, Ohio. As an adult, she suffered from back problems (she walked with crutches and wore back and leg braces), as well as an enlarged heart, diabetes, and asthma.

After promising God that if she recovered from a spine operation she would build a monastery, she and other nuns started a fishing lure business, which paid for the monastery in a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama. In 1981, she launched EWTN.

It's difficult to know what to think about a basically good, likable person who has some bad, even terrible ideas. But I have agreed to disagree with so many people that I can handle it. (I am a lot of things, but not feisty. I don't know if I'm bragging or complaining about this.)

So I've put Mother Angelica on my list of “Nice People Who Are Dead Wrong About Some Things”, where she joins blogger Hement Mehta,The Friendly Atheist, Pope Francis and my religiously and politically conservative friends.

(You can read more about Mr. Mehta in my blog post “The Slacker in the Stroller” March 20, 2014 and view him and Mother Angelica on YouTube.)