will no one rid me of that troublesome nun?

.........if the Catholic church in the USA hasn't fallen completely captive to the corrupt and lax, it is because an Italian American nun in the middle of nowhere was willing to preach the word of God.

 Her famous "throwing down the gauntlet" speech is at six minutes in this film.

........

the title of this post is a paraphrase of Henry II's lament about Thomas Becket, who opposed his attempt to subvert the church.

In Mother Angelica's case, it was Cardinal Mahoney who did his best.

Mother tried her best not to personally attack anyone, and one could say that a few of those who preached on her network were later removed for corruption or faux pas, but one time Mahoney released a document that trivialized the Holy Sacrament, and she did name names.

Mahoney, who was the powerful Cardinal of Los Angeles and beloved of the MSM, complained to the Vatican (her order was supervised from Rome, not by the local bishop). But JP2 protected her.

But one result was that she changed the network to have a lay Catholic supervision, so that the US Bishops could not take it over.

And of course, it was many years later that someone outside the poor laity (who like those of us who lived in Altoona, knew about such things) noticed Mahoney had a little problem.

2013 article NatCathRegister about Mahoney being relieved of some (but not all ) of his duties.

,,,,All this got me to thinking about Cardinal Mahony's legacy. For those of us who watched it at the time, it is hard not to think of Cardinal Mahony without also thinking of the legacy of Mother Angelica. Their two competing visions of the Church came to a head in the late 90's and for a while it was quite unclear which vision would prevail. Ultimately, it is too soon to say which vision will prevail, but perhaps it is not too soon to ponder their legacies.....