Contrary to a lot of popular opinion, I was very troubled about Mother Angelica’s rantings in the last ten years of her television career.
I only had a vague idea that she was ranting about liberals, which I could understand to a great extent from my own experience, but I did not have the insight into all her issues.
I’m telling you, I predicted that there was going to be a book like this about EWTN. I just couldn’t predict when and where and by whom. This book seems to chronicle what I didn’t like about EWTN – particularly Mother Angelica’s rantings. I could understand her ranting about the women priests who were making up their own liturgies, but I couldn’t understand why Mother Angelica was so hot about these things and spilling this stuff in family programs. In part, I disliked it because she was preaching to the choir. (I suppose the real issue is the real and perceived liberal drift of the bishops in the U.S.)
I had a much more pedestrian complaint about EWTN – The Eternal Word Television Network – they seemed to spend precious little time on guess what ? The Eternal Word itself. Fr. Pacwa had a bible -oriented program for a while before he became the anchor that he is now. I don’t think he did a very good job at it, like it was a special production, and not a daily sort of thing you might expect from the “eternal word” television network.
I don’t like all the commercial-like announcements on the network.
I started a separate thread on how to improve EWTN. Actually, that is one of my beefs, to wit, that the people there act like they don’t need any suggestions.
I am tired of the deep traditionalists who just keep whining about not having the Latin Mass. I liked TLM and didn’t have any trouble with it. What I don’t like, is how banal the English Mass became. There doesn’t seem to be the revolution in quality music that I expected forty years ago. That’s rreally the ‘failure to thrive’ of the English Mass.
What a lot of people disliked about the English mass, and they don’t talk about it anymore, are all the ‘pauses’ that were interjected in the Mass. These were supposed to be moments of meditation or reflection, and these have mercifully been whittled down. But, the point is, there was a meaningful liturgy before in Latin without the pauses, and we never had any trouble meditating on what was going on.
So, we had these ‘pauses’ foisted on us, and then came the endless other changes about standing, sitting, or kneeling, with standing suddenly becoming the declared winner. And why? Because the Mass was becoming so boring, that they had to do something to keep people awake. People were falling asleep in the pauses!
I would revise my comments about M. Angelica by saying that I was annoyed that I couldn’t figure out her agenda. I just got tired of hearing her complain. I just couldn’t get excited the way she did, about whether the priest said “Dominus vobiscum” or “The Lord be with You”. That just did not hit any hot button with me.
I might agree that EWTN as a evangelization has become EWTN the business.
