MOTHER KNOWS BEST

By John Elson

With her ample jowls and round, beamish face, she looks a bit like Benny Hill--without, of course, the late British comic's leering smirk. Her voice is high-pitched, nasal and a trifle slurred, her frequent laugh a piercing cackle. At a time when some Roman Catholic nuns wear discreet designer clothes, she is resolutely old-fashioned in her ankle-length brown robe and hair-concealing white scapular. The Catholicism she espouses is old-fashioned as well, redolent with devotion to the Virgin Mary and the Latin-rite mass, deeply rooted in the Baltimore Catholicism of the 1940s. Some critics call her "the zinging nun" for her forthright attacks on feminists and other Catholic liberals who, in her view, confuse the faithful and weaken the church by daring to disagree with Pope John Paul II and his bishops.

Meet Mother Angelica, 71, improbable superstar of religious broadcasting and arguably the most influential Roman Catholic woman in America. In her day job, Mother Angelica is abbess of Our Lady of the Angels Franciscan monastery in Irondale, Alabama, a suburb of Birmingham. More famously, this self-taught telenun is board chairman (she deplores all-inclusive language) of Eternal Word Television Network, which reaches 36.8 million cable-equipped American homes via 1,204 affiliate systems. The largest of America's three all-religion cable networks, Mother Angelica's channel is going international. On Aug. 15, EWTN will begin 24-hour daily broadcasts, in English and Spanish, to cable systems in Europe, Africa and South America.

EWTN's top draw is Mother Angelica, whose twice-weekly shows (with numerous taped repeats) are broadcast from a studio near the Irondale monastery. Mother Angelica gives new meaning to the phrase "winging it." On Tuesday's Mother Angelica Live, scriptless and sometimes armed only with a theme--youthful piety, for example--she rambles for 30 minutes or so about whatever enters her wimpled head. On Wednesday's installment, she chats with guests, usually priests or laymen who share her conservative views; both segments include calls from viewers. In video terms, it's totally retro, but it works. Says Jesuit Father Thomas Reese of the Woodstock Theological Center in Washington: "She's the most successful Catholic TV evangelist since [Bishop] Fulton Sheen in the '50s."

It is something of a miracle that Mother Angelica entered the religious life. Born Rita Rizzo in Canton, Ohio, and the product of a broken home, she remembers the sisters who taught her in parochial school as "the meanest people on God's earth." Nonetheless, at 18 she joined the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration, a traditional, strictly cloistered order of Franciscan nuns with special devotion to the consecrated host which is, Catholics believe, the Body of Christ. Crippled in a work accident, she vowed to establish a convent of her own in the predominantly Protestant South if she regained the use of her legs. (She did, but still walks with crutches and metal braces.)

In 1973 a group of Episcopalians in Birmingham invited her to lead some seminars in Bible studies. Her growing fame as a spiritual teacher and writer led to 60 appearances on Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network. In 1981 she founded EWTN, which began broadcasting four hours a day from a primitive studio in a converted garage. Now the network has a staff of 134 and owns property and equipment worth $32.4 million. There is no budget as such. Mother Angelica believes God will provide, and so far he has: last year loyal fans contributed $13.2 million to keep EWTN on the air.

Mother Angelica preaches total loyalty to the Pope and the magisterium (the church's teaching authority). Her most provocative expression of that faith took place during John Paul II's 1993 visit to the World Youth Day conference in Denver. One feature of this event was a mimed pageant on the stations of the Cross in which the role of Jesus was performed by a woman. Several bishops were present and took no umbrage, but Mother Angelica was aghast. Having a female represent Christ was "an abomination" and "blasphemy" perpetrated by unnamed Catholic liberals who want to "divide and separate and destroy" the church. "Enough is enough," she declared, her voice quivering with anger. "I'm tired of inclusive language that refuses to admit that the Son of God is a man. I'm tired of you, liberal church in America. You're sick." One prelate who witnessed the pageant, Milwaukee's liberal archbishop Rembert Weakland, called Mother Angelica's performance "disgraceful, un-Christian and offensive."

Some of her critics believe Mother Angelica has become at least unintentionally subversive of her antifeminist goals by becoming a teaching authority in her own right. It is easy to see why she is. Her comforting manner, her reliance on traditional formulas and even her grandmotherly ire against "liberalism" appeal strongly to Catholics nostalgic for the old church of certainty. As she proudly proclaimed in her 1993 diatribe, hers is "the Catholicity of the simple and the poor and the elderly." And as Jesus taught, she added, woe to those who would tamper with it. --Reported by Richard N. Ostling/Irondale

With reporting by RICHARD N. OSTLING/IRONDALE