Rome, Italy, Mar 27, 2017 / 12:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A veteran Vatican official praised EWTN foundress Mother Angelica as a pioneer of the New Evangelization, saying the way in which the Church speaks to the men and women of today wouldn’t be the same without her influence.
“I think Mother Angelica was a New Evangelizer ante litterum (before her time),” Monsignor Graham Bell told CNA.
An official of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization who has spent around three decades in Rome, Msgr. Bell said that while St. John Paul II coined the phrase some 30 years ago, Mother Angelica had been an active player “long before.”
“She just fits into that so well, because why do we have the New Evangelization? Not because the Gospel is new – the Gospel is ever-new, but it’s also unchanging, and the ‘new’ in the New Evangelization is essentially seeking to find new languages with which to communicate the Gospel to the men and women of our time.”
Mother Mary Angelica of the Annunciation founded EWTN in 1981, and it has since become the largest religious media network in the world. She died March 27, 2016 after a lengthy struggle with the aftereffects of a stroke. She was 92 years-old.
Mother Angelica, Msgr. Bell said, was able to talk about even difficult or sensitive topics in a meaningful way that always brought people “back to the center, which is Christ.”
Please see below CNA’s full interview with Msgr. Bell:
One of the reasons I wanted to speak to you about this is because of the frequent remarks you’ve made in the past about Mother Angelica and what she accomplished. Why is she such a striking and important person for you?
I came to Mother Angelica not through her television programs, but maybe at the beginning of the 2000s, there was a craze – maybe it was more popular then, I’m not sure, but there was a kind of podcast craze, and what EWTN did at that time is they would put out Mother Angelica live as a podcast, so I faithfully downloaded this every week. I didn’t know this nun before I started listening to the podcasts, and what immediately became clear is that there’s nothing original in Mother Angelica, she’s not trying to be original, all she’s trying to do is she’s taking the Word of God, she’s taking the teaching of the Church and she’s applying them to people’s lives. And the more I listened to this lady, the more I was reminded of Cardinal Newman’s motto: Cor ad cor loquitur, heart speaks to heart. And she has this phenomenal capability of speaking to your heart, and that comes across. Obviously I was listening to it as a podcast, I couldn’t see how people were reacting in the studio to what she was doing, but this great humanity came out. I think Newman got his motto from Saint Francis de Sales, and I think Francis de Sales said heart speaks to heart, whereas the tongue just hits the ear. You always had the impression with Mother Angelica that her heart was behind what she was saying. It struck people as true because she recognized it as true, and I think this is a phenomenal gift. It’s a gift every preacher should seek to have, but it’s also a gift that every Christian should seek to have. This phenomenal capacity to communicate and to communicate the unchanging truth of the Gospel in a way that’s relevant for men and women today, and that’s an art, it’s a grace.
Do you think this is a reason she’s been so attractive and appealing to so many people?
Yes, I do. Because language changes, and it changes now at a greater pace than it’s ever changed, and Mother Angelica in my opinion was able to bridge the gap. Sometimes the institutional Church isn’t good at speaking to people, but I think Mother Angelica, first of all with her many books, and then when she got the television and radio thing going, she was capable of bridging that gap. I can think of many things she said about people with addictions, you know? Sometimes the Church isn’t good at doing that, but she was good at looking at things which were difficult to talk about, but talking about them in a way that was very, very meaningful and always bringing people back to the center, which is Christ. I listened to all of her podcasts, and I just thought it was phenomenal. It certainly helped me in my preaching, and also helped me in the living of my priesthood.
In view from your position on the Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, how do you think Mother Angelica has influenced the New Evangelization? Clearly she’s been a huge personality …
I think Mother Angelica was a New Evangelizer ante litterum (before her time). I think John Paul II coined the expression himself in 1979 when he was in Poland, and what Mother Angelica had been doing long before that was certainly New Evangelization, certainly. She just fits into that so well, because why do we have the New Evangelization? Not because the Gospel is new, the Gospel is ever-new, but it’s also unchanging, and the “new” in the New Evangelization is essentially seeking to find new languages – I use the term language in the extended sense – with which to communicate the Gospel to the men and women of our time, who obviously have to hear the Gospel in a language which can understand. But the thing about Mother Angelica is, it was never the case of communicating a content which really didn’t concern her. Her communicating the Gospel was she was really communicating a part of herself, because Christ was so much a part of her and a part of her religious vocation. In communicating Christ through television, through radio, through her many books, she was actually communicating a part of herself, she was so identified with Christ, and I think that’s the heart of the New Evangelization. Obviously another thing I think is very close to the heart of the New Evangelization is the whole question of witness. Because how did Jesus communicate the Gospel to his disciples? He is the Gospel in himself and in his person. It was done through what he said and what he did, and what he said and what did find their center in his very person. So it must be for those who witness to the Gospel. It’s not enough just to speak about Christ, and it’s not enough just to do good works. There has to be a relationship so that what we say is explained by what we do, and what we do is explained by what we say. And I think in Mother Angelica, as in the great saints, this is exemplified, this is exemplified very, very strongly.
A lot of people see the impact she had specifically in the Church in the Unites States and say that she changed the Church in the U.S. during a really critical time, but we also see that this is spreading very internationally. With your experience and in your time following EWTN, how do you see that she’s influenced culture even here in Europe?
Mother Angelica, it must never be forgotten, was a woman religious. And women religious have a very, very, very important role to play in the New Evangelization and in the Church generally, because people react so favorably to them, because they express the maternity of the Church in a way in which priests and men religious really aren’t capable of doing. Mother Angelica, I think, is exemplary in this, and in her clarity of identity. What you see is what you got, there was no mystification there. You saw this nun with her habit, and she was always the same, the message was always the same, and this sense of authenticity I think absolutely captivates people. And I think that’s a big part of her secret and why she’s so popular. It’s this capacity of expressing maternity in an age in which maternity is not very fashionable.
Being here in the Vatican for so long – you’ve been here for about 30 years, right? – have you seen any impact that she’s made here specifically?
I don’t know about that, about what impact she’s made here. I think she’s made a positive impact to the extent that I think women religious always make a positive impact. When women religious are faithful to their vocations and faithful to the Church, they always make an impact, and I think the history of the Church demonstrates this. I wouldn’t be able to say what her impact has been on the various dicasteries. Certainly I do consider her one of the forerunners of the New Evangelization, and it would be difficult to imagine the New Evangelization without figures like her. I think one of the keys to the success of the New Evangelization will be how we can involve women religious in this project. I think the more we involve them, the more the New Evangelization will be successful.
So in your opinion, aside from EWTN, what do you think is the core of the legacy she has left that and that we’re continuing to see grow?
I would say this very, very humble, that I think today in the Church we are very much concerned, I would even say obsessed, by the question of communications, because we want to keep up with the times and we realize that this is very, very important; communications are a very important part of how the modern world works, and it’s important that the Church should be there. But what we must never forget, in my opinion, is that content always has a primacy over the technical aspect. The technical aspect is absolutely wonderful, but if you’ve got nothing to communicate it’s completely useless, and I think Mother Angelica, she wasn’t just the person who founded this fantastic, hotshot television network that was financed completely by the people who listened to it. It wasn’t just that. It was the fact that she always put content first, and I think that’s a great part of her legacy. But I also think another equally important part of her legacy is the eternal truth of our Catholic faith. It always has been and always will be until Christ comes again, it’s a question of a man or a woman who believes in the Resurrection of Christ, looks into the eyes of another man or another woman and says ‘I believe’, and asks you to believe, too. And Mother Angelica exemplifies this; the transmission of the revelation, the transmission of our faith will always be an interpersonal relationship, and all of the hardware and all of the software and all of the gadgetry will never be able to replace that. And she never imagined that EWTN or her various initiatives would ever substitute this interpersonal transmission of the faith. So I think her legacy will be discovered 10, 20 years down the way. I really do.
Would you say that part of the appeal and effectiveness of how she communicated the Gospel and the Resurrection had to do with how she experienced it in her own life?
Yeah. She suffered. I can’t remember all the details of her biography, but I know early on in her life she had a serious medical conditions, and these were overcome and they were overcome through prayer. She might also have been the subject of a miracle, thinking about her very early life before she decided to become a nun. And then all through her life she battled through ill health. One of the things that makes her so authentic is that when you listen to – one of the things I used to love about EWTN was listening to all the podcasts, and you could hear her coughing, and she would put a cough sweet into her mouth, and if you look at the big, sleek media operations like the BBC, you very rarely hear people coughing and at EWTN you could hear all this, and it was so human. With technology, I think a television lens transforms everything, and it really is – if it’s the great observer, it’s also the great betrayer because you look at these television studios and how they come through the lens of the camera, but when you actually go there and you see how they’re built with all the cables everywhere that people never see, and the lighting makes it seem much bigger than it is, it’s smoke and mirrors, it really is from start to finish. You never got that impression with EWTN. You got the impression that here’s a lady in her parlor, speaking to you in your parlor, that’s what it came across as. So she coughed, and she put in a cough sweet and it was wonderful.
Did you ever get to meet her personally?
I didn’t, no. I always used to ask – sometimes we got people coming up from EWTN – I would always ask how is she, and I think the most of the latter half of her life she was bedridden. And sometimes you wonder what did God want from her in that time? What was her vocation in that time? That’s very difficult to discern.
It was striking to me that the culmination of those last few years and then to pass away on Easter after what I understand were very excruciating last days. There was clearly something at work …
Her oneness with Christ … Another chap who greatly influenced me when I was listening to Mother Angelica about 10-12 years ago was Father Benedict Groeschel, because he had Sunday Night Live. That would come out as a podcast and I would download that too. He is another one, I think they’ll both be saints. With Benedict, I know something happened at the end of his life, but that will be forgotten. In fact, it should probably be forgotten right away, because I don’t think he said what he was intending; an old man – and a young man – can make mistakes. But I am convinced that both of them will be beatified, I’m absolutely convinced.
[…]
As a member of the human race that gives me standing to do what I am about to do, I hereby apologize for the original sinful actions of Adam and Eve, even if they apologized for their own actions.
While I am at it, I hereby apologize for the apostle Paul, because prior to his conversion, he persecuted many Christians, approved the stoning of Stephen and apparently approved the executions of other Christians as well. And because of his sinful past prior to his conversion, I am also recommending that any churches named after him should no longer bear his name.
I am also recommending that Cardinal Marx, as a citizen of Germany, should apologize to all Jews on behalf of Adolf Hitler and his Nazis for their numerous atrocities against Jews while running the government of Germany.
Clapping hand emojis to you, DocVerit.
I could add to your list of those for whom the cardinal should apologize, but I fear he may suffer a surfeit of humility if he were to continue dispensing such capacious apology. Already he has so copiously, generously, and expansively dished out overmuch in the name of his evolved church.
Thanks, meiron. Alas, in addition to the basic absurdity of vicarious apologies, what we also have here is another unjust contribution to the myth that the Catholic Church was not really the enemy of Nazi Germany during the reign of Hitler.
Moreover, to people like Cardinal Marx, the “guilty” Catholic Church of that time was the “benighted” more traditional Church not yet “enlightened” by “progressives” like Marx and his fellow travelers. In this respect, the vicarious apology is a not so subtle arrogant chastisement of the traditional Church based on another false “progressive” narrative.
Mahatma Gandhi was a firm believer in peace and non-violence. He disapproved wars and world wars. Gandhi would say: “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
In 2008 Pope Benedict called upon Hindus in India to imitate Gandhi, rather than continue their own violence, against Christians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_against_Christians_in_India
Thus, in your judgment Doctor, when it comes down to St. Augustine’s moral theology about war, or Ghandi’s critique of the appalling British Empire and its defooand tortured imitation of Christianity, you judge Ghandi superior to Augustine.
As they once upon a time said at law schools: “Bad cases make bad law.”
I suppose tour opinion is an aspect of “the recent magisterium?”
Mahatma Gandhi, despite his historical merits, is no God, and his words should not be taken as such. I have been hearing through the years that quote of his you bring here, and the same always comes to my mind, that that was an arrogant guilt trip of his as the Church is filled with canonized Saints and those who were and are non-canonized Saints, as canonization is merely a recognition of something God did in a human person, man or women or child.
There’s Catholics who did plenty of charity works among the people and the poor of the world and of India in Gandhi’s time (Mother Teresa being at the top), yet he could not see them. His blindness was too convenient to exalt himself. Self-exaltation is the opposite of Christ-likeness, and it applies to him and to all of us.
My comment below may have been posted at an earlier occation.
Poor senior’s memory! Apologies. Bob
Paul was thrown off his horse, was converted, and eventually
was MANDATED to be the Apostle to the Gentiles. What’s to be
apologetic about here ?? . . especially when “I-AM-JESUS”
peppered His Servant [ Paul ] with many “heavy-duty” Crosses
. . stoneings, shipwreck, flogging, many “minor” crosses,
concluded with beheading in Rome.
As a little detail of little interest…there is no horse in scripture; this is the artistic-license invention of the artist Carrivaggio in 1610.
Caravaggio!
Scripture doesn’t relate St. Paul rode on a horse it’s true, but perhaps it’s assumed in the similar way we see the Blessed Mother depicted riding a donkey to Bethlehem?
As a mother I can attest that walking would have been a whole lot more bearable in that condition that riding on the back of a donkey.
But we really don’t know what happened back then.
The indications I got from the article were that Bishop Defregger had repented. If that is forgotten, or minimized, was tasking his name off the street really about “remembering history?”
Marx apologizes for Defregger torching the village of Filetto di Camarda and executing 17 civilians….Butt, if not Marx, then who will eventually apologize for his (Marx’s) attempt to torch the Church, itself, and erase the memory of two millennia of membership in the perennial Catholic Church…a smoldering agenda with a flare-up now at the Synod on Synodality:
Wikipedia: “Cardinal Müller criticized Marx again in September 2022 when he spoke regarding texts that Marx and Bishop Batzing were supporting that were calling for the Pope to change church teachings on sexual morality and the ordination of women: ‘There are two errors in this that only theologically ignorant can commit: 1) the Pope has no authority to change the teaching of the Church, which is based on God’s revelation. By doing so, he would exalt himself as a man above God. 2) the apostles can only teach and order what Jesus commanded them to teach (Mt 28:19)’. In November 2022, in another interview, Muller criticized Cardinal Marx for putting away his pectoral cross when he visited the city of Jerusalem out of respect for other faiths.”
Just to be clear, the column did not say that Defregger had ever been accused of torching the village or executing anyone.
And it did say that in spite of lengthy investigations and several court proceedings in both Italy and Germany, he was never found guilty. Apparently, of anything.
Why stop here? Marx should keep going and apologize for himself, and all German Bishops who support the Synodaler Weg.
Well, he wouldn’t score any virtue signaling points for that, so it’s a non-starter.