c. 2005 Religion News Service

HANCEVILLE, Ala. _ The lines of people waiting to meet Mother Angelica at her monastery hinted at how beloved a figure she remains, though she hasn’t done a live TV show in years.

“I think she’s a saint,” said Marlon Roa, 43, an American Airlines aircraft mechanic from Miami who brought his wife and three children to see the famous nun. “She’s a no-nonsense personality, very humorous, but behind the humor, she speaks the truth.”

Mother Angelica’s fans lined up to see her through the iron bars of the cloister at Our Lady of the Angels Monastery on a recent weekday afternoon. At 82, she can barely speak anymore because of debilitating strokes she suffered in 2001. But on this visit, she grasped their hands and gave them plastic rosaries.

Raymond Arroyo, author of “Mother Angelica: The Remarkable Story of a Nun, Her Nerve, and a Network of Miracles,” and the news anchor on Angelica’s EWTN Catholic cable network, signed copies of the book on its first day of release (Sept. 6). He handed a copy to Mother Angelica in the stone castle that she built on the grounds of the monastery.

In the book, Arroyo describes the future nun’s difficult childhood in Ohio as Rita Rizzo, her move to Alabama, the founding of the monastery in 1962 in Irondale and the creation of Eternal Word Television Network next door in 1981. She moved her monastery to Hanceville in 1999.

He also chronicles her occasional run-ins with bishops, who at times seemed to envy her successful network.

“Her pulpit was always bigger than theirs,” Arroyo said. “It was also a woman in a position of teaching power in the church. The very idea of a woman providing spiritual leadership made some of them uncomfortable. She’s the most influential and powerful woman in the Catholic Church.”

Old tapes of her “Mother Angelica Live!” shows still air on EWTN. “Some of these people don’t know she had a stroke,” Arroyo said. “The shows are timeless. Mother taught classic Christian spirituality.”

She seemed to enjoy the chance to interact with her fans again.

“She loves to see people,” said Sister Mary Catherine, who has been with her since 1978 and now handles leadership as mother vicar of the monastery.

“When she talks, she makes sense, but she doesn’t talk very much,” Sister Mary Catherine said.

Two days earlier, Mother Angelica watched for hours as a stray cat taken in by the monastery gave birth to four kittens. She says prayers in Latin before and after meals.

The Rev. Mitch Pacwa, who took over her talk show when she was no longer able to do it, asked her to speak into a camera for a taped segment.

“Say hello to your family,” he said.

She paused and seemed to struggle a moment to find the words in her head that used to come so easily when she was one of the funniest, most talkative religious figures on television.

“Hello, family,” she said.

A while back, one of the nuns was scratching an itchy nose. “My nose itches; I guess that means a fool wants to kiss me,” Sister Grace said.

“Don’t look at me,” Angelica said.

“She says funny things,” Sister Mary Catherine said. “She still has that gift of expression.”

(Greg Garrison writes about religion for The Birmingham (Ala.) News.)

KRE/PH END GARRISON

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