Friday, March 27, 2026

It is the 27th of March 2026. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

Listeners to this show may know of my fascination with Sister Aimee Semple MacPherson- the eccentric foursquare minister and radio pioneer in Los Angeles in the 20s and 30s. What if I told you that Sister Aimee had a “Catholic Sister” who became a “mother” whose life had striking parallels in the second half of the century, but was based out of Alabama?

She was born Rita Rizzo in Canton, Ohio, in 1923 to Mae and John Rizzo. Growing up in poverty and being shuffled between Grandparents, her parents divorced when she was about six. Her early life was characterized by the poverty of Canton with its mixed communities and organized crime. She was a poor student, but a majorette who made money teaching baton twirling until a stomach ailment forced her to quit. When doctors couldn’t help, she turned to a local mystic who instructed her to pray a novena to St. Theresa of Lisieux- upon her healing, she decided to join the Order of the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration in Cleveland. Rita Rizzo would take the name Sister Mary Angelica of the Annunciation (she would later become “Mother” Angelica) and take her solemn profession at the Sancta Clara monastery in her native Canton in 1953.

It was there that she suffered an accident with an electric floor scrubbing machine that almost left her paralyzed. Needing a spinal fusion, she prayed to God and promised to found a new monastery in the South if she was healed. Upon successful surgery, she worked with Archbishop Thomas Toolen of the Archdiocese of Mobile to found a monastery in the south for the underserved African American population (she was inspired by MLK, despite the antipathy for Catholics in the south). From 1959, she began a company- St Peter’s Fishing Lures- it was profitable enough for her to purchase a two-bedroom house and 15 acres of property in Irondale, Alabama (just outside Birmingham). This would become Our Lady of the Angels monastery, dedicated in 1962. From the Monastery, now Mother Angelica, would begin parlor conversations on faith and life. These were recorded and sold as 45rpm records. Despite being cloistered, she began to teach outside the monastery, and her recordings became a popular Sunday morning radio program.

She began taping her show for CBS, but when she became dissatisfied with their general programming, she decided that she would launch her own television station. In the midst of the late 70s satellite explosion, she was able to procure a dish, set up a studio in a garage at the monastery, and in 1981 officially launched EWTN- Eternal Word Television Network. From 60,000 homes receiving four hours of daily airtime, it is now one of the largest Catholic media outlets in the world, reaching some 435 million people in 160 countries. She found a patron in Pope John Paul II, whose own theological and political views roughly mirrored her own. JPII praised the station as the next stage in world evangelization, and Mother Mary would eventually move her sisters into a new site, the new Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Hanceville, Alabama.

As a media figure, Catholic in the south, woman, John Paul partisan and critic of some of Vatican II, she was obviously going to become something of a lightning rod. In the 90’s, she criticized Cardinal Mahoney of Los Angeles and made a forced (and arguably weak) apology on air to him. EWTN and Mother Angelica were becoming a juggernaut, and in a church with distinct levels of authority, she found herself in trouble. There are definite parallels with the fundamentalist movement and media that the Catholic Church now finds itself in the midst of.

In 2001, she had a major stroke and divested herself and the monastery from leadership at the network. Increasingly unwell, she spent the last years of her life at the monastery at Hanceville, taking visitors until her death on Easter Sunday in 2016, which was on this, the 27th of March.

EWTN has a parallel in TBN and other evangelical broadcasters, and the parallel with another celebrity sister gives us one more glimpse at the tumultuous 20th century and how various churches in America navigated it and the new media landscape. Rita Rizzo- Mother Angelica was 92 years old.

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and Philippians 1:

21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 22 If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! 23 I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; 24 but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. 25 Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, 26 so that through my being with you again your boasting in Christ Jesus will abound on account of me.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 27th of March 2026, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man whose favorite Rizzo’s include Rita, Grease’s Betty Rizzo and the Muppets Rizzo the Rat- he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who reminds you that Stockard Channing was 33 when cast as the high school-aged Betty Rizzo- I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.