Mother Angelica: The Remarkable Story of a Nun, Her Nerve, And a Network of Miracles

The extraordinary saga of Mother Angelica, founder of the multimillion-dollar Eternal Word Television Network and âthe most influential Catholic woman in Americaâ according to Time magazine

In 1981, the year after Ted Turner founded CNN, a simple nun, using merely her entrepreneurial instincts and $200, launched what would become the worldâs largest religious media empire in the garage of a Birmingham, Alabama, monastery. Under her guidance, the Eternal Word Television Network grew at a staggering pace, both in viewership and in influence, to where it now reaches over a hundred million viewers in hundreds of countries around the globe.

Born Rita Rizzo in Canton, Ohio, in 1923, Mother Angelica was abandoned by her father and raised in poverty by a mother who suffered from suicidal depressions. As a young woman, Rita developed severe abdominal pain that doctors dismissed as a ânervous condition,â but when she sought the prayers of a local mystic, her symptoms disappeared. Awakened to the power of prayer, she vowed to dedicate her life to God and became a cloistered nun, expecting to spend her life hidden from the world. But Ritaâs faith soon compelled her to unlikely endeavors, from establishing a monastery in Alabama to starting the worldâs first Catholic cable network. Relying solely on âGodâs providence,â Mother Angelica built an empire without concern for budgets or fund-raising campaigns, achieving what even the highest levels of the Catholic Church had been unable to do.

Raymond Arroyo combines his journalistâs objectivity and eye for detail with more than five years of exclusive interviews with Mother Angelica. He traces Mother Angelicaâs tortured rise to success and exposes for the first time the fierce opposition she faced, both inside and outside of her church. It is an inspiring story of survival and proof that one womanâs faith can move more than mountains.